Two rounds down, five to go in the F1 ACADEMY 2026 season. Alisha Palmowski has taken a sledgehammer to F1A history. But, with Silverstone on the horizon and a grid full of hungry talent, the 2026 season is only just getting started.
There is a version of this story where Palmowski wins the 2026 F1 ACADEMY title before the halfway point. Two rounds in and she already holds a 78-point lead, breaking the series’ all-time record for the largest winning margin. Not only that, she has done it twice in the same weekend. She has not finished lower than first in a single race she has led.
But F1A has never been a series that rewards certainty. The 2026 season opened with chaos in Shanghai, produced one of the wildest reverse grid races Montreal has ever seen and now hurtles toward Silverstone for a debut appearance on British soil.
If the first two rounds have taught us anything, it is that the moment you turn your back on this championship, it bites.
Shanghai Lit the Fuse
The 2026 season got underway at the Shanghai International Circuit in March. If fans were hoping for a gentle warm-up, the grid had other ideas.
Nina Gademan won Saturday’s reverse-grid race with a lights-to-flag victory to take her second win in the series. A composed and clinical performance that briefly put the Alpine-backed Dutchwoman at the head of the standings.
However, Sunday’s feature race belonged to Emma Felbermayr. She secured her second F1A win, holding off Alisha Palmowski to give Audi its first victory in the all-female series and emerging as the early 2026 championship leader.
What made it significant was not just the result but the story behind it. Felbermayr was frequently overlooked as a potential title contender coming in 2026, with much of the spotlight landing on Emma Lloyd, Palmowski and Alba Larsen.
That omission did not go unnoticed. Now, as part of the Audi Driver Development Programme, the Austrian had watched the pre-season predictions circulate and felt her name conspicuously absent. She only used it as fuel.
A third-generation racer – both her father and grandfather competed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans – Felbermayr carries that lineage not as a safety net but as a standard to meet. Shanghai was evidence she was ready to meet it.
Palmowski Takes Over in F1 ACADEMY 2026 Montreal
Two months passed between rounds – the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix cancellation in April wiped out the Jeddah leg of the calendar. When the paddock regrouped at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in late May, Felbermayer arrived as championship leader with Palmowski just four points behind her.
What followed was one of the most dominant individual weekends in F1 ACADEMY history.
Palmowski took her first victory of the 2026 campaign, leading a Campos Racing 1-2 finish from lights out to the chequered flag in the Montreal Opening Race. The Red Bull Racing driver made a superb start from pole and drove off into the distance, comfortably building a gap to finish 10.1 seconds clear of teammate Megan Bruce.
This 10.1 seconds was the largest winning margin in the series’ history.
She then went out in the Feature Race and broke her own record.
Palmowski put in a commanding performance in the wet Montreal Feature Race, dominating around a drizzly Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. Despite pre-race showers causing a slippery track, the Briton held firm off the line and extended her advantage lap by lap and took the chequered flag 10.9 seconds clear.
Back-to-back lights-to-flag wins. Two new records in 48 hours. Palmowski left Montreal with a 78-point lead in the Drivers’ Standings.
The Rookies Refuse to be Ignored
While Palmowski dominated the headline races, Montreal’s chaotic Reverse Grid Race handed the podium to a group of drivers who had no intention of playing supporting roles.
Chaos unfolded during the Reverse Grid Race, with incidents resulting in three drivers DNFs. Mathilda Paatz claimed her maiden F1 ACADEMY 2026 victory, with several post-race penalties shaking up the final results and promoting Payton Westcott to third – forming a special all-rookie podium.
Paatz, the German rookie driving for Prema, delivered a controlled performance through the carnage to take the win. For a driver in only her second competitive weekend in single-seaters, the composure was striking. Bruce, meanwhile, claimed her maiden podium in the Opening Race – one of several rookies signalling that the class of 2026 is not here to make up the numbers.
Championship leader, Felbermayr, on the other hand, had a weekend to forget. She stalled at the start of the Opening Race, dropping through the field and conceding the standings lead she had built in Shanghai.
But if Montreal dented her title hopes, it did not erase them. She recovered to second in the Feature Race and remains within reach of Palmowski heading into the second half of the season.
History Awaits at Silverstone
The next chapter of this season is written at a venue the series has never visited before. F1 ACADEMY 2026 will head to Silverstone for Round 3, making its debut at the iconic British circuit as part of the British Grand Prix weekend.
The series arrives at Silverstone 12 years after Managing Director Susie Wolff made her Formula One Free Practice appearance there in 2014 – a moment that felt historic at the time, and which now forms part of a longer, still-unfolding story about women in motorsport.
Five British drivers are set to race on home soil: Palmowski, Lloyd, Ella Stevens, Bruce and Rachel Robertson.
For Palmowski in particular, leading the championship at her home Grand Prix round is both a privilege and a pressure. Lloyd is also worth watching closely. In the Montreal Opening Race, she charged through the field, gaining ten places from sixteenth to sixth. The McLaren-backed driver has shown race pace that her qualifying positions have not always reflected.
The F1 ACADEMY 2026 Title is Not Won Yet
Palmowski is formidable. Her pace across both Montreal races was not just fast – it was in a different category. But five rounds remain, with Zandvoort, Austin and Las Vegas still to come after Silverstone. Every one of them is an opportunity for the standings to shift again.
Felbermayr lost the lead once. She will not accept losing it twice. Paatz and the rookies are finding their feet faster than anyone excepted. And Silverstone, with a bone-deep love of motorsport and a capacity crowd ready to roar, is exactly the kind of stage where reputations are made and titles begin to take shape.
The 2026 F1 ACADEMY season is a story still being written. Montreal told one chapter of it. Silverstone promises to write another.
Featured image credit: terra.com.br
Edited by Alexandra.
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