Palmowski can settle the F1 Academy title in Austin, and she is 48 points clear
Alisha Palmowski arrives at the Circuit of the Americas 48 points clear in the F1 Academy championship, and a driver can score a maximum of 39 in the Las Vegas finale. The arithmetic is therefore simple. If she leaves Austin more than 39 points ahead of Emma Felbermayr, the title is hers with a round still to run.
In this article
- Forty eight points clear, and the finale is worth 39
- Austin has three races, because Jeddah never happened
- Four wins and four poles from nine races
- The reverse grid race is where it can still go wrong
- She says she is not stressed about it
- Our guess: it is settled in Austin
- The other championship is the one for next year’s grid
Forty eight points clear, and the finale is worth 39
After four rounds Palmowski has 136 points. Felbermayr, the Rodin Motorsport driver who has been the closest thing to a challenger, has 88. Nina Gademan is third on 71, and nobody below her has more than 50.
Las Vegas in November is a two race round: a reverse grid race worth ten to the winner, a feature race worth 25, plus two points for pole and a point for fastest lap in each race. That adds up to 39 for a perfect weekend, and it is the number that decides whether Austin can settle this.
Put the other way round, Palmowski can afford to lose eight points of her cushion in Austin and still be champion before the cars are unloaded in Las Vegas.
Austin has three races, because Jeddah never happened
The Austin round on 24 and 25 October is one of two this season with an extra race. When the Jeddah round was cancelled, F1 Academy added an opening race to both Montreal and Austin, so this weekend runs an opening race, a reverse grid race and a feature.
That cuts both ways for a championship leader. Three races is more scoring opportunity, and it is also one more chance for something to go wrong in a way that is out of her hands.
Four wins and four poles from nine races
The season has not been close. Palmowski, who is 19 and races for Campos Racing with Red Bull Racing backing, has taken four wins and four pole positions from the nine races run so far. At Montreal her winning margin was the largest in the history of the series.
She came to single seaters late by modern standards, through karting, the Ginetta Junior Scholarship in 2022 and a runner up season in GB4 in 2024, before a wildcard outing in F1 Academy at Qatar and a full seat with Campos from 2025.
The reverse grid race is where it can still go wrong
Zandvoort showed how. Palmowski took pole and won the feature race, which is the version of the weekend everybody remembers. In between, her car stalled twice on the grid for the reverse grid race and she finished twelfth.
That is the shape of the risk in Austin. A driver who qualifies at the front starts the reverse grid race in the pack, and in the pack things happen that have nothing to do with how quick you are.
She says she is not stressed about it
Asked about the championship buffer after Zandvoort, her answer was flat in a way that suggests she means it. “I think I’m not too stressed about it, to be honest,” she said. “It’s a very privileged and nice position to be in.”
She was less relaxed about the race itself. “I had even more pressure from Alba in this race than what I had from Chiara at Silverstone, especially for the first half,” she said, before adding: “I wasn’t 100% at the limit in the first half of the race, I would say we were 90 to 95%.”
And on the start that cost her the reverse grid race: “Just too much wheel spin off the line, so it’s something I have got to look at and address ahead of Austin.”
Our guess: it is settled in Austin
For Felbermayr to take this to Las Vegas she needs to take at least 40 points out of a 48 point deficit across three races in Austin, which realistically means winning almost everything while Palmowski has a bad weekend. It can happen. It has not happened once this season.
The more interesting question is what the last round then becomes. A dead rubber in Las Vegas, with a full grid of drivers racing for 2027 seats rather than a title, is not a bad thing to watch.
The other championship is the one for next year’s grid
Behind Palmowski, the rest of the order matters more than it looks. F1 Academy seats turn over hard, and a strong finish is the argument a driver takes into her contract talks. From fourth to seventh there are three points in it: Alba Hurup Larsen on 50, Payton Westcott and Megan Bruce on 49, Ella Lloyd on 47.
Austin also brings a new name to the grid. Alexia Danielsson, 17, has the TeamViewer wild card for that weekend, and we have written about her here. Palmowski’s full profile is on her driver page, and our earlier piece on the generation coming through is here.
