Chasing the dream

It’s been quite the year in motorsport for 19-year-old Emma Felbermayr. The young Austrian driver arrived at the start of the 2026 season with just one year of F1 Academy experience behind her, but has demonstrated a maturity behind the wheel to match her impressive skill set to see her heading into the final two rounds of the F1 Academy season sitting comfortably in second place in the driver’s standings.

Driving for Rodin Motorsport with the backing of the Audi Revolut F1 Team as part of its Audi Driver Development Program, Felbermayr has consistently finished in the points in 2026, wracking up podiums and very much stamping her authority on races from Shanghai to Canada.

Last year, her first in the series, saw her finish 10th, but after four rounds in 2026 and just two remaining, she is solidly locked into second with a real shot at the top spot.

While not yet a household name Down Under, the Felbermayr name is deeply intertwined with motorsport, with both her father and grandfather having competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Emma began karting at the age of seven, initially following the traditional path through junior categories before stepping onto the international stage.

By her early teens she was already competing against some of the strongest young kart racers in Europe. A second-place finish in the ADAC Ladies Cup at 13 was followed by experience in WSK competition and the World and European Karting Championships. Then the transition to cars came in 2025, when she entered F1 Academy.

The F1 Academy uses identical Tatuus F4-based cars, removing the outright machinery advantage and focusing on driver ability and race strategy to differentiate between the drivers. And while Felbermayr's first season was one of discovery, she has taken that experience with her into the 2026 season with impressive results from the very start.

Audi's arrival in Formula 1 with the Audi Revolut F1 Team has brought with it a broader ambition than simply constructing a Grand Prix team. The brand is building a development structure around the project, and Felbermayr is one of its first young drivers. Under the guidance of Audi's Driver Development Program, she is being exposed to an environment in which the details matter –  engineering, preparation, physical development and the ability to communicate effectively with a professional race team.

Shanghai provided an early indication of what the partnership might produce, Felbermayr finishing third in the opening race before producing the weekend's decisive performance in the Feature Race. She took victory – her first of the season and her first representing Audi — establishing herself immediately as one of the drivers to watch.

Then came Montreal, a circuit that already carried special significance for Felbermayr, delivering her breakthrough F1 Academy victory 12 months before. This time, she returned not as a newcomer searching for her first major result, but as a championship contender.

Silverstone in July provided perhaps the clearest demonstration yet of her developing racecraft, fighting her way from eighth on the grid to third in one race. Then a pole position later in the weekend gave her the perfect platform for the Reverse Grid Race, which she converted into a controlled victory.

Indeed, after Silverstone, she was the only driver in the field to have scored in every race of the season to that point.

That consistency matters enormously in a championship like the F1 Academy and at Zandvoort in August, Felbermayr continued that pattern, finishing fourth in the Reverse Grid Race and fifth in the Feature Race to keep her second in the championship as the series headed into its final two rounds.

This weekend, along with the Formula 1 circus, the championship heads to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin before concluding in Las Vegas in November.

For Felbermayr, though, the significance of 2026 reaches beyond the eventual position beside her name in the championship table.

This is the season in which she has begun to look less like a promising newcomer and more like a professional racing driver in the making. She has the speed that brought her through karting, the family heritage that first introduced her to the sport and now the experience of competing with the backing of the Audi Driver Development program.

For now, the focus remains on the next race, the next qualifying lap and the next opportunity to find those fractions of a second that separate a good lap from a great one.