F1 Academy Round 2 Report

A celebratory weekend for Rafa

Rafa

was

back

for

Round

the

2025

Academy

and

also

celebrated

her

birthday

the

streets

Jeddah.

After

valuable

points

haul

China,

the

birthday

girl

was

back

action

for

Round

the

Academy

Jeddah.

A Big VCARB Birthday

Rafa got straight to it and was 13th overall after 15 laps of Free Practice. Rafa improved on her time but remained in P13 in qualifying, giving herself plenty of opportunities for some overtaking in the two upcoming races.

Race1-P13

The reverse grid delivered a thrilling Race 1, won by Lloyd by less than a second. Rafa had strong race pace and held her qualifying position to finish 13th, 16.3 seconds off the race winner.

Race2-P13

In Race 2, Rafa was sitting in P8 until a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision demoted her to P13 at the chequered flag.

Setting Times

Sadly, it was a weekend of P13s for Rafa. She delivered a consistent race pace across the weekend and produced strong lap times around one of the most difficult circuits on the F1 Academy calendar, which is no mean feat. Though she leaves Jeddah with no points on the board, there’s plenty to learn from this round:

HearingFromRafa

Rafa said: "It was a difficult weekend for us, I think I struggled with the track a little, but we were improving every time we went out. Qualifying is something I need to maximise a little better. Race 1, I struggled a little but Race 2 was better. We overtook four cars on the start and got up to P8. It was a good race to be honest, I was pushing as much as I could every single lap to open up a gap. I hit the car in front which gave me a 10-second penalty which was a shame as we were in the points and we needed them. I'm now looking forward to Miami and I'm excited about it. We want to start the weekend there as we ended it here. I think we take everything we learnt here and take it into Miami. It's another street circuit and I'm excited to go racing there."

Rafa is back out on track in two weeks for Round 3 of the F1 Academy in Miami. Join her and VCARB at the Hard Rock Stadium from 2-4 May.