These days, everyone wants to get behind the wheel. Major motion pictures like F1, Netflix’s Drive to Survive series and even Amelia Dimoldenberg’s YouTube series Passenger Princess have attracted more Formula 1 fans than ever before. But in recent years, a growing number of women have joined the race, accounting for more than 40% of the fan base. 

“Having things like Drive to Survive increased the fan base of women a lot. Depending on the age range that we’re looking at, we’ve got up to almost 46% of women that are fans of Formula 1,” says Silvia Bellot, Las Vegas Grand Prix vice president of sporting and race operations. 

Another major driver has been F1 Academy, an all-female Formula 4 series that launched in 2023 to draw more women to the motorsport. A recent F1 report surveyed more than 100,000 fans from 186 countries and found that 23% of fans follow F1 Academy regularly, compared to 42% of surveyed women. It’s the second most-followed series after F1, says Bellot, who has seen the global phenomenon transform over the years. 

“Formula 1 and actually racing ... has always been part of my life since I was a kid. But one of the things I always mention is that when I was young, there was no role model I could look at. I knew what I loved, I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t even see that was a possibility,” Bellot says. “But now we’ve changed a lot. We’ve been working very hard at different levels, with F1 Academy and with some other groups that they’re involved with, to get more women in the sport. Nowadays, this is not a problem anymore, which is a really good thing.” 

F1 Academy will cap off its third season at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, racing for the first time on the Las Vegas Strip Circuit. And the track ahead has never looked more promising.

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