Maya Weug started her F1 Academy title bid with her first pole position in the series, as the Dutch racer dominated the first qualifying of the season at Shanghai, preceding Doriane Pin and an impressive Alba Hurup Larsen. Eighth, Nina Gademan will start from reverse pole in race 1.
Maya Weug kicked off her F1 Academy title bid, claiming her first pole position in the series. The Dutch racer, now competing for a Dutch team, topped the timesheets in the first qualifying session of the season at Shanghai International Circuit.
Just a few hours after the sole practice session, the 30-minute qualifying session got underway with 17 cars on track. Lia Block was in fact forced to sit out after her heavy crash in practice left her Williams Academy ART GP-operated Tatuus with chassis damage. Meanwhile, Rafaela Ferreira received a three-place grid penalty for causing the incident.
Just like in practice, McLaren’s Ella Lloyd was the first to set a lap time, posting a 2:06.143 to take provisional P1 ahead of Aurelia Nobels and Courtney Crone. Chloe Chong, however, had to abandon her first flying lap after encountering traffic from Joanne Ciconte exiting the pit lane at Turn 1.
Chloe Chambers, already showing strong pace earlier in the day, then clocked a 2:06.092. However, it was her Campos teammate Alisha Palmowski who first broke into the 2:05s, with the Red Bull-backed driver improving by almost a full second. Soon after, Maya Weug stormed to the top of the leaderboard, setting a 2:04.301 just 10 minutes into the session. Alba Hurup Larsen slotted into fourth, just ahead of Chloe Chong in fifth. Weug then became the first driver to dip under the 2:04 barrier with a strong 2:03.781.
Having topped the morning practice session, Doriane Pin responded with the fastest first sector but fell just a tenth short of Weug’s time.
At the halfway mark, Weug, Pin, and Chambers emerged as the leading contenders for pole. Pin further improved her purple first sector on the next attempt but remained just under a tenth behind Weug at the line. Chambers, meanwhile, locked up and was unable to improve, keeping her in third. Nina Gademan put in a strong lap to post a 2:04.422, moving up to fourth and pushing Hurup Larsen and Palmowski down a spot.
With 14 minutes remaining, the field pitted for fresh tyres. As the session entered its final 10 minutes, improvements started rolling in. Chloe Chong climbed to sixth, while Rodin Motorsport teammates Ella Lloyd and Emma Felbermayr moved up into eighth and tenth, respectively. The Austrian rookie then found more time on her next lap, promoting her Sauber-liveried car to sixth.
Alba Hurup Larsen continued to impress, posting a 2:04.006 to snatch third place, six tenths off provisional pole-sitter Weug.
With slipstreaming playing a crucial role on Shanghai’s long back straight, drivers jostled for position in the final minutes. Joanne Ciconte made the most of it, setting a 2:04.146 to secure fifth in one of the most impressive rookie performances of the session. Nicole Havrda narrowly missed out on a top-ten spot, her 2:04.811 placing her just outside in 11th.
As the clock wound down, Felbermayr improved to sixth, while Chong—on a promising lap—went deep into the hairpin and remained in tenth. Palmowski reclaimed fifth just as the checkered flag fell, but few others managed to improve on their final runs. This included Doriane Pin, who locked up at Turn 14 and had to settle for second place.
Unchallenged in the closing stages, Maya Weug secured her first-ever F1 Academy pole with a commanding 2:03.379—four tenths clear of Pin. Already shaping up to be an exciting battle at the front, Weug, who switched from Prema to MP Motorsport in the off-season, carries strong momentum after winning her first race at the 2024 Abu Dhabi finale. She will share the front row with Doriane Pin for Race 2.
The standout rookie of the session was undoubtedly Alba Hurup Larsen, who took an impressive third and will line up alongside Chloe Chambers on the second row.
Alisha Palmowski ended qualifying in fifth, ahead of two equally impressive rookies—Joanne Ciconte and Emma Felbermayr. Eighth-placed Alpine driver Nina Gademan claimed reverse-grid pole for Race 1 on Saturday.
After a strong practice session, Tina Hausmann missed out on reverse-grid pole by just five hundredths of a second and will start ninth, ahead of Chloe Chong and Ella Lloyd.
Nicole Havrda was the fastest Hitech driver in 12th, ahead of Rafaela Ferreira—who will drop three places due to her penalty—and Aurelia Nobels. Courtney Crone and Aiva Anagnostiadis will share the penultimate row, with just two seconds separating the top 16 cars.
Chinese Wild Card Shi Wei will start 17th, ahead of the unlucky Lia Block, who will have a new chassis for Race 1, forcing her to charge from the back.
Race 1 is scheduled for Saturday at 13:50 local time, marking the return of the reverse-grid format for the first time since the series' inaugural season in 2023.
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