This article is part of our Origin Stories series, an inside look at the backstories of the clubs, drivers, and people fueling the sport.

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As Chloe Chambers navigated the final lap of Race 2 in Barcelona on her way to her first win in F1 Academy, she took a different approach.

The American driver was laser-focused, making sure to keep the lap clean. But with the gap she built to the rest of the field, she could take the final corner around Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya slower than usual.

“I just drove that last lap and took the time to realize what had happened in the race because, of course, while you’re racing, you don’t really think about that,” Chambers said. “You just think about the next thing coming up the next corner. And so I was able to use that last lap to think about things, think about what I was going to say on the radio. That’s always important.”

Chambers is proof that a driver can thrive in motorsports without making the full-time Europe jump. Haas supports the 20-year-old in F1 Academy, the all-women racing series that is the latest addition to the Formula One pyramid. She climbed to that point while still residing in the United States.

Waiting for her in parc ferme after her first F1 Academy victory, aside from Campos Racing and members of Haas, was…

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One of the biggest critiques F1 Academy faces from new fans is that the cars are, to their eyes, fairly slow.

Some fans have likened it to a tractor. Even Max Verstappen has questioned the speed, saying in part to De Limburger, “The cars they drive are way too slow. If you ever want to get them into Formula One, it really has to go to a higher level.” But when you ask F1 Academy, it is the right car for the right level.

F1 Academy, the all-women racing series launched in 2023, is part of the F1 pyramid and aligns with the F1 calendar for seven race weekends a year — Saudi Arabia, Miami, Barcelona, Zandvoort, Singapore, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Some tracks, like Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Saudi Arabia, are straighter than others – like the banked corners at Zandvoort. This can give the impression that F1 Academy is slow, F1 Academy competition manager Delphine Biscaye said, particularly compared to the high speeds of the F1 cars.

F1 Academy’s cars are similar to Formula Four, an equal competition level, but with a noticeable tweak that aligns F1 Academy more with F1. It’s the right choice for this series because it helps prepare…

Bryan Blackford was hosting a Daytona watch party at his house late last month when he was stunned by a video that appeared on the Instagram feed of NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace.

Just hours before a crucial race for Wallace, the driver was shown intensely playing a mobile racing game called “DRAFTYCAR” — and enthusiastically celebrating in his motorhome after winning.

Blackford, who spent three years developing DRAFTYCAR by himself as a labor of love and homage to his biggest passion, couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“I had some buddies over and we were all just completely beside ourselves when the video dropped,” Blackford said. “I was just like, ‘This is not real life.’”

But the energy for DRAFTYCAR is very much real, as it has swept through the NASCAR garage in recent weeks. Drivers, crew members and fans have all embraced the game as a simple yet surprisingly rich reflection of the stock car racing world.

“It’s fun to just be able to escape for however long a race is — what, five minutes? — and enjoy it and see how you can be better than your friends,” Wallace said. “(Wife) Amanda is playing it and doing it a lot, so it’s cool.”

Wallace isn’t the only one playing the game. Xfinity Series driver Kyle Weatherman was so pumped about…

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Jessica Hawkins wants Formula One to be a sport accessible and welcoming to girls and women everywhere. And she believes a moment similar to when England’s women’s national soccer team won the European Championship in 2022 is on its way.

Alongside her work as a stunt driver (her CV includes the James Bond movie “No Time to Die”), Hawkins, a 29-year-old former W Series racer, is one of the sport’s female pioneers. She is Aston Martin’s F1 driver ambassador and heads up its efforts in the all-female F1 Academy junior series, which focuses on increasing the number of women involved in what remains a male-dominated sport.

And as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, she has been an advocate for increased diversity and inclusion across motorsport.

In September 2023, Hawkins, from Headley in Hampshire, England, became the first woman in nearly five years to test a modern Formula One car when she drove the AMR21 around Hungary’s Hungaroring circuit.

The test drive was a milestone moment but Hawkins, however proud, thinks there are even bigger days to come.

“It got a lot of traction,” she says. “The younger generation would have…

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What do you want to be when you grow up?

An astronaut chef. A jet pilot. A dancer. A racing driver.

Children’s imaginations run wild, and these dreams can sometimes seem like a distant future, an intangible concept difficult to grasp. But perhaps seeing their dreams featured on one of the most eye-catching liveries in all of international motorsports this year will help these aspirations feel more like reality. Because as the Iron Dames’ 2024 Le Mans project says, “Every Dream Matters.”

Ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the first all-women lineup in endurance racing asked fans on social media “what did you dream of becoming when you were a child.” They later visited an elementary school in Le Mans, France, asking them to draw how they imagined their future, and explained the story of how the Iron Dames are “Women Driven by Dreams.” With the help of AI, the drawings were converted into a livery that symbolizes what the Iron Dames stand for.

“We want to tell the kids that no matter what…

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and JTG Daugherty Racing have agreed to a multi-year contract extension, the NASCAR Cup Series team announced Thursday. Stenhouse’s contract was set to expire at the end of the season.

Stenhouse, 36 joined JTG, a single-car team co-owned by husband and wife Tad and Jodi Geschickter, and retired NBA player Brad Daugherty, in 2020 after seven years with the since rebranded RFK Racing.

In 2023, Stenhouse delivered JTG its most successful season that saw Stenhouse win the Daytona 500 and clinch JTG just its second-ever playoff berth. Stenhouse also, arguably, produced JTG’s most consistent results through the course of a season since the team first began competing full-time in NASCAR’s premier division in 2009. Stenhouse’s nine top-10 finishes and 17.8 average finish tied the team’s previous high in both statistical categories.

Stenhouse currently ranks 27th in the 2024 standings, with a best finish of fourth through 11 races, occurring two weeks ago at Talladega Superspeedway.

Required reading

(Photo: Meg Oliphant / Getty Images)

Adrian Newey, Red Bull’s global chief technical officer, may be set to leave the Milton Keynes-based team at the end of the season, according to a report from BBC Sport.

Speculation about a potential departure ramped up Thursday after the report. When reached for comment, Red Bull didn’t confirm or deny if the highly regarded designer has expressed a desire to leave the reigning world champions and said that Newey remains under contract until at least the end of 2025.

Newey is widely considered one of the greatest Formula One designers, being part of 12 constructors’ world championship victories. He’s designed championship-winning cars for Williams and McLaren and has spent nearly two decades with Red Bull, dating back to 2006.

If he is to depart from Red Bull, it will spark a race for his signature, with significant interest anticipated from Ferrari and Aston Martin.

Per BBC Sport, Newey’s desire to leave stems from the ongoing situation with team principal Christian Horner, who faces allegations of inappropriate behavior. Horner has continued to deny these allegations, and the initial grievance was dismissed. However, the female employee has since appealed.

As the process unfolded, a power struggle appeared to surface within the reigning world championship team…

Susie Wolff’s quiet confidence is evident the moment you meet her.

She’s ambitious and bold, not afraid to fight for something she believes in. And when her character came into question when the FIA launched an inquiry into allegations of conflict of interest last year, Wolff pushed back, filing a criminal complaint last month in relation to the governing body’s statements.

To understand why she’s pursuing legal action, one first must understand Wolff herself, a woman whose name has become synonymous with the fight for women in motorsport. Born Susie Stoddart, the Scot has worn many hats over the years, navigating the motorsport ranks as a driver before entering the management side, now serving as the managing director of the all-women series F1 Academy.

Wolff’s story is one defined by tenacity, starting from a small town in Scotland and morphing into a journey of showing how women belong and can be successful in what’s still considered “a man’s world.”

“Someone said to me many years ago, dream and dream big. But always have a plan because of a dream without a plan, that’s called a wish,” she said in Las Vegas last year. “You need to know how you’re gonna achieve your dreams and have the tenacity to make them happen.”

The rise of a ‘calculated’…

NASCAR’s ties to Bowman Gray Stadium run deep, a bond established over decades.

The first race on the legendary short track in Winston-Salem, N.C., was co-promoted by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr., the track played host to its first NASCAR race in 1949 and it was the first NASCAR-sanctioned track to host weekly grassroots racing, something it continues to do to this day.

Bowman Gray’s importance to NASCAR history extends beyond what transpired on the quarter-mile bullring. The track is also where NASCAR’s first family met, with Bill France Jr. being introduced to his future wife, Betty Jane Zachary, in 1957. Betty Jane became an instrumental figure in growing NASCAR into a billion-dollar business empire.

NASCAR’s connection to Bowman Gray is now entering a new chapter. On Thursday, NASCAR will announce it has acquired the lease to manage racing operations at the track effective immediately. The lease runs through December 2050.

“This is a really kind of special moment for us,” said Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s senior vice president of racing development and strategy. Kennedy is France Sr.’s great-grandson, and the nephew of NASCAR CEO Jim France. He also won a NASCAR East Series race at Bowman Gray in 2013.

“I know it is especially meaningful for Jim seeing that he…

MELBOURNE, Australia — Lewis Hamilton wants Susie Wolff’s decision to take legal action against the FIA to “create change” in Formula One, calling out the lack of transparency and accountability “within this sport” and “within the FIA.”

On Thursday, the FIA announced that its president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, had been cleared by its ethics committee after an investigation found that allegations of sporting interference made against him were “unsubstantiated.”

Hours later, Wolff, the managing director of the all-women F1 Academy series, revealed she had filed a criminal complaint against the FIA.

This legal action, lodged in France on March 4, is related to statements made by the FIA in December after a short-lived probe into an alleged conflict of interest involving Wolff and her husband, Toto, the Mercedes team principal, and the potential passing of sensitive information.

Speaking on Thursday in Melbourne ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton, the seven-time F1 world champion who drives for Mercedes, said he was “incredibly proud” of Susie Wolff and that “for her to be standing up sends such a great message.” He then called out “a real lack of accountability here, within this sport, within the FIA.”

“Things that are happening behind closed…