F1 Academy's Netflix debut opens doors, but struggles to tell the series' full story

New York Times

25-06-2025

Cheers filled The Fillmore Miami Beach during the Miami Grand Prix weekend at different moments as the opening scenes of 'F1: The Academy' played on a large screen.
Susie Wolff, the all-women racing series' managing director, is the first voice viewers hear in the docuseries produced by Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine company. 'Formula One is dominated by men, but that is about to change,' Wolff said.
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F1 Academy's inaugural season took place in 2023, and as the years passed, the series began aligning more with F1 and the other junior categories. Since 2024, all 10 F1 teams have supported a driver, with their liveries painted across cars similar to those used in Formula Four. That year, the F1 Academy's updated calendar landed the series on F1 weekends, competing in places such as Miami, Singapore, and Abu Dhabi. Heading into this year, the rules changed, bringing back reversed grids (which are also used in Formula Two and Formula Three sprint races).
But F1 Academy's connection to the pinnacle of motorsport ventured outside of the racing spectacle. Netflix's docuseries 'Drive to Survive' opened up F1 to a wider audience, offering a behind-the-scenes look at what was once considered an exclusive sport. When Wolff stepped up to helm F1 Academy, she was told by many people to try to find time in the Box to Box product, a different way to promote the all-women category to an F1 audience.
Instead, she set out to find her own docuseries to promote F1 Academy alone. In came Hello Sunshine.
The production company took the behind-the-scenes concept a step further with how 'F1: The Academy' was edited, the season tracking multiple storylines from various drivers over the course of seven episodes. As expected, Abbi Pulling is one of the main focuses, as she won the championship last season, and the likes of Lia Block and Bianca Bustamante took center stage too. Here are a few standout moments from the latest motorsport docuseries to hit Netflix's platform and a few tidbits we learned across the seven-episode season.
'We were not trying to create drama where there was no drama, and some drivers complained that they didn't have much screen time,' Wolff told The Athletic. 'But we only picked the best stories because we couldn't cover everyone. We just had to pick the stories that we felt would resonate the most with people.'
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'F1: The Academy' gives a similar feel to the early 'Drive to Survive' days, though the newer show leans even more into showing raw, emotional moments and including multiple outside perspectives.
One of the strengths of 'F1: The Academy' was the behind-the-scenes content, whether it be on-camera interviews with key people connected to a driver and captured conversations or emotional moments in driver rooms, makeshift garages or away from the track. You're able to see friendships develop and the camaraderie among the competitors. It provides a more human element to the competitive category.
One of the early stars of the first episode is Warren Hughes, McLaren's head of driver development. Concerns are highlighted early on about Bustamante's performance and striking the right balance between the marketing and media side of the motorsport, and the competition. Hughes doesn't censor his opinions despite the camera being nearby.
And there was significant family involvement in this first season. Block's mother, Lucy, is featured in numerous interviews, and both Lucy and Lia open up about the late Ken Block.
Chloe Chambers' family is also featured, with a bulk of the filming taking place during the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix weekend, where the American driver won the second race. Hello Sunshine spent a portion of the episode talking about the family's story, as all three children are adopted. And Pulling's father and grandfather are brought in later on, with Hello Sunshine capturing Pulling and her father visiting her grandfather, then following her father during the Qatar Grand Prix weekend when she won the title.
Near the end of episode six, 'The Hardest Race Of My Life,' Pulling's interview aired on track television screens as she spoke about her father's sacrifices, and Hello Sunshine's cameras captured him watching, as tears glistened in his eyes. Her father narrated a montage of clips capturing Pulling's journey to this moment, including winning the championship and securing a fully funded seat for the GB3 championship for 2025.
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While Hello Sunshine brought in more supporting characters and behind-the-scenes footage, it nailed the emotional aspect that can make 'Drive to Survive' powerful. These drivers are athletes, but it sometimes feels as if the human aspect of sport can become lost when the competition is on the line.
Wolff more than delivered when she was told to try to get screentime on F1's docuseries path. There's room for improvement for Hello Sunshine's project, like any in the early stages, but it nailed what's expected in the documentary world — capturing the behind-the-scenes moments and the emotions.
As 'F1: The Academy' progresses through each episode, the audience meets different drivers and sees how their seasons unfold. They learn early on that Pulling is a force to be reckoned with, and they watch how Block's confidence grows — how she's forming her own legacy while also being Ken Block's daughter.
Bustamante's story, though, hit a different note. Her engagement with fans and social media became a focal point, framing it as a distraction from her job as a driver. As of June 17, the Filipino driver has 1.7 million followers on Instagram and 1.4 million on TikTok. Bustamante explained how these opportunities help fund her racing, a notoriously expensive sport. Hughes was incredibly blunt throughout the season, claiming that with the external stuff, 'it is quite clear there is an element of distraction.'
'I think some of what Bianca did off track (was) arranged herself. It was a lot,' Wolff said. 'Was it all necessary? I can't judge, (but) she has to fund the next stage of her racing, because she knew she wasn't going to win the championship. In the end, they're all individuals. And you could see Lia hated all that stuff. She was all about the racing. But for Bianca, she got energy from that, and that's okay, but we also couldn't shy away from the fact that she didn't perform on track.
'She made rookie errors that she shouldn't have done at her stage of her career. So I do think it was a quite honest portrayal of each driver. There wasn't, I felt, anything edited to make a driver look different to how they were in reality.'
Bustamante's mistakes were put under a microscope throughout this season. She stalled at the start of a race during the Miami GP weekend, then crashed during practice on the Dutch GP weekend and damaged her chassis and was unable to participate in one of the races. She was also out of position on the starting grid for a race during the Singapore GP weekend (missing her grid box entirely), resulting in a stop-and-go penalty. She endured a few collisions during the season and made driver errors.
Wolff described the missed box moment episode as 'a beginner's mistake,' and Hughes said to Wolff, 'I know. It's really disappointing. It's a psychological thing more than anything.' Wolff responded,' Oh, listen, I feel for her, but I also just get to the point where…' and shakes her head.
It's not that mistakes are rare in F1 Academy. Numerous drivers are still early in their respective careers. But, to Wolff's point, Bustamante has been competing in single-seaters since 2022 — including in the W Series and the UAE F4 championships. She joined F1 Academy in 2023 and scored podium finishes and won two races that year, finishing seventh with 116 points in the inaugural season. But her performances didn't progress, as she finished 2024 with no wins and was seventh again with 73 points.
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'I love Bianca for the character she is,' Wolff said. 'Was the on-track performance good enough? No. And as much as I can sometimes come across as quite brutal, I need to be, because if I'm going to keep the respect of this paddock and the people who know how tough the sport is, I can't be pretending that all of these girls are good enough to go on to a career. And the truth is, if you're not racing at the front in F1 Academy, which is a segregated series, yeah, it will be tough to make your way in a sport. This sport is tough regardless of your gender.
'So it was trying to create an environment where we're giving the drivers the best chance of success, but not shy them away from just how tough motorsport is.'
Bustamante discussed in the fifth episode how she was distracted during what is the closest to a home race, in Singapore, the pressure mounting. A few scenes later, as night fell on the city state, she was scrolling through comments on social media, snippets popping up. She opened up about how vulnerable she felt after a bad race and, reading those comments, how she wanted to 'disappear from the world.'
'I don't think people see quite how much you have to deal with,' Hughes said to her. 'There's a lot of attention on you.'
'All these F1 drivers, they didn't have this amount of spotlight,' Bustamante responded. 'No one knew who they were until they made it and broke through. And it really has taken a toll on my performance. I think massively. It's the biggest factor.'
While the docuseries introduces viewers to a few of the F1 Academy drivers and how its racing format worked in 2024, there are glaring omissions, such as acknowledging the first season in 2023 and where the championship fits in the motorsports ladder. The title alone suggests that the category is closer to the pinnacle of motorsport than it actually is.
F1 Academy began in 2023 with a fairly different schedule and promotional position from what we see today. Marta García won the inaugural championship after securing seven victories, 12 podium finishes, and five pole positions. During that first season, the all-women junior series did race at numerous F1 circuits, such as Monza and Circuit of the Americas, but also competed at tracks currently not on the calendar, like Valencia or Le Castellet. And the coverage was hardly as visible as it is today. The races weren't broadcast, but fans could follow along on social media or monitor the live timing on F1 Academy's website. Then on Mondays, a highlights video was published, and a 15-minute program came midweek.
Now, it's a night-and-day difference, with investment from the F1 teams, broadcasters airing coverage in over 160 territories, and the Netflix cameras in tow.
And with all the eyes now on this series, it's worth highlighting where it sits. F1 Academy competes in a car similar to an F4 car, and that is around where the series sits in the motorsport ladder. Formula Regional and GB3 are in-between steps en route to F3, and F1 Academy is above karting, sometimes being someone's first introduction to a clutch.
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The junior category, though, faces intense pressure.
'It's going to sound very brutal,' Wolff said in the fourth episode, 'but if you can't cut it in F1 Academy, there's not going to be much of a career left in motorsport for you.'
Pulling revealed during one episode that without the championship, she likely wouldn't have been able to continue her career. Amna Al Qubaisi opened up when she realized her single-seater career was over after being unable to perform in 2024. And Bustamante came under scrutiny as she navigated the media and the sport. As Wolff said at one point, 'If you can't get the basics right…'
F1 Academy is a racing series. Full stop. It's not a vanity project; for some drivers, it's how they've saved and advanced their careers. However, that doesn't mean F1 Academy doesn't face its questions and criticisms, such as whether the car is the right vehicle to help prepare these women for subsequent championships. It's a project still in its early stages, and it has marketing around it that's akin to F1. Whether it'll be successful in the other half of its purpose — training these rising drivers so they can progress in their careers — will be determined in the next couple of years.
F1 Academy is about giving the drivers 'the environment where we can really nurture their talent,' as Wolff said in the docuseries, and inspiring the next generation of women.
'Eventually, I want to see a female driver in Formula One.'
'F1: The Academy' had the ingredients, but it felt as if it was missing components to fully tell the complete story of the all-women racing series.
The explanatory component, such as the framework of its racing, is missing and the early barriers to entry for female drivers are left largely untouched. Challenges do exist within motorsport, and it's more than just a lack of representation and visibility for women, which F1 Academy and this docuseries do help address by giving these drivers a platform. In a way, the Hello Sunshine production is a success from that standpoint.
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Looking at it from a filming standpoint, the footage is clear and crisp, and the emotional moments captured make the audience buy into the series. Different elements could resonate with both casual and motorsport audiences, and the series has an inspirational and empowering feel.
But for it to be the movement that Wolff wants, we need to start unpacking the complicated state of women in motorsport.
Times are changing, and progress is being made. It does feel like positive change is happening, and I do feel this docuseries is successful from an exposure and storytelling standpoint.
Top photo: Tim Whitby – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)