It was a weekend of progress for Kornelia Olkucka at Barcelona, which hosted the Formula Winter Series season finale, as the Polish racer narrowly missed out on her first Female Trophy win in the third race of the weekend, delivering a clean and consistent drive to secure her second top-20 finish of the season.
It was a weekend of progress for Kornelia Olkucka at Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona, which hosted the season finale of the 2025 Formula Winter Series. The Polish racer narrowly missed out on her first Female Trophy win in the third race of the weekend, delivering a clean and consistent drive to secure her second top-20 finish of the season and a strong second place among the female entries.
Olkucka, now in her second season of single-seater racing after her rookie campaign in F4 Central European Zone in 2024, has been competing in one of the most competitive F4 series to prepare for her upcoming Italian F4 season: the Iberian-based championship, in fact gathers some of the most promising young F4 talents in Europe, and has provided a valuable training ground for the Maffi Racing driver, who has shown significant progress since the season opener in Portimão, learning new tracks and steadily closing the gap to the competition.
After securing her first top-20 in Valencia, Kornelia faced a challenging round in Aragón, where mixed weather conditions made for tricky races. However, despite the difficulties, the experience proved invaluable in her development.
Heading into the season finale in Barcelona, Olkucka once again had to contend with difficult weather, which complicated both learning the track and car setup during pre-event testing. Despite these challenges, she made notable improvements on the first day.
However, the second day was heavily disrupted, with a final wet session resulting in little useful data and multiple red flags preventing drivers from setting representative lap times.
Saturday morning brought more rain, as forecasted, resulting in a wet qualifying session. As expected, the session was again heavily disrupted, with three red flags halting the action. Like several other drivers, Olkucka struggled to put in a clean lap and ended up 25th fastest.
In Q2, Kornelia found more pace, setting a 2:11.8 early on and taking P26 with a few minutes left on the clock. On her final run, she improved further with a 2:10.373 in extremely tricky conditions, securing a P26 start for the races.
Leo Sami Robinson secured pole position, sharing the front row with Fionn McLaughlin, while Bart Harrison and Davide Larini lined up on the second row.
Despite the earlier rain, the track was drying, but conditions remained tricky, as demonstrated by Simon Schranz, who ended up in the gravel on the formation lap. This led to a delayed race start and an additional formation lap.
Olkucka got off to a solid start, but early drama struck as she had to pit due to a puncture from contact with Ginevra Panzeri at Turn 4. Panzeri received a five-second penalty for the incident.
Rejoining in P26, almost a lap down, Kornelia focused on using the race as a testing session. She managed traffic well as the leaders came through and began improving her lap times. Running personal best sectors, she gradually closed the gap, eventually setting a 1:50.8.
As incidents unfolded ahead, Olkucka gained positions and eventually took the checkered flag in P24—an unfortunate result given the early contact but a solid effort in challenging circumstances.
Sunday morning brought more rain for the second race of the weekend. Olkucka started from P28, aiming for a clean and consistent recovery drive.
Despite the very wet conditions, all cars made it through the opening corners unscathed, though grip remained a challenge, and visibility was compromised by water spray.
On the first lap, Ginevra Panzeri went off into the gravel, becoming the first victim of the treacherous conditions and triggering an early Safety Car. Kornelia had a strong start, moving up to P26 after passing Enea Frey.
As the race was about to go green again, Kabir Anurag came to a halt, leading to an extension of the Safety Car period. When the race resumed on Lap 5, Olkucka executed a strong restart and gained a position on Aleksander Ruta, climbing to P25.
By Lap 10, Maksimilian Popov spun at Turn 1, and Thomas Bearman went off at Turn 9, triggering another Safety Car. The neutralization played into Olkucka's favor, as she had a 20-second gap to the cars ahead, allowing her to catch back up to the pack. Now running in P24, she had a fresh opportunity to fight for positions.
The restart came with just one minute left on the clock. In tricky conditions, Davide Larini spun at Turn 1, while Javier Herrera also went off into the gravel, shuffling the order once more.
Olkucka gained more positions, running in P23 with one lap to go. She set her personal best lap of the race—a 2:07.9—and made a final pass on Payton Westcott to finish P22. It was a clean and composed drive in extremely difficult conditions, allowing her to gain six positions from the start.
For the final race of the Formula Winter Series season, the sun finally emerged, providing fully dry conditions for the first time all weekend. Olkucka lined up P28 once again, determined to end her campaign on a high note.
At lights out, Fionn McLaughlin was slow off the line, but the field made it cleanly through Turn 1. Kornelia had a strong launch, moving up to P25 after overtaking Panzeri and capitalizing on incidents ahead.
She continued to hold her ground but soon had to defend against Panzeri, who fought back on Lap 5. However, with Westcott, Cotty, and Paatz encountering trouble, Olkucka found herself in a battle for the Female Trophy win.
First, though, she had to clear Teo Borenstein and Leo Sami Robinson, with Panzeri also increasing her pace in the dry conditions. Kornelia maintained steady lap times, gradually closing in on Borenstein; while she couldn't quite find a way past her Maffi Racing teammate, she kept up a strong and consistent pace.
With six minutes to go, a collision between Aleksander Ruta and Fionn McLaughlin saw Olkucka gaining two more places, moving up to P21 and trailing Simon Schranz, who had just been demoted by Borenstein. On the penultimate lap, Borenstein ran into trouble and fell to P22. Kornelia, however, found herself locked in a battle with Andrija Kostić, who managed to get past her in the closing stages.
At the checkered flag, Olkucka crossed the line in P21, securing second place in the Female Trophy class. After post-race penalties were applied, she officially finished in the top 20—one of her strongest performances of the season.
This result marked her second top-20 finish in Formula Winter Series, highlighting her steady development and ability to apply the experience gained throughout the winter campaign.
Overall, it was undoubtedly a weekend of progress for Kornelia Olkucka: the Polish racer demonstrated again determination and a strong learning curve throughout the winter series, using every opportunity to develop her racecraft.
With her main program now on the horizon, Olkucka is set to make her Italian F4 debut at Misano on May 2-4.
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