F1 Academy title-leader Abbi Pulling has told Motorsport Week that she is hoping to “seal the deal” and win the title in order to progress to the GB3 category.
Just before the interview took place, it was announced that the eventual winner of the F1 Academy championship – which she leads by 95 points with just two weekends remaining – will earn a contract with Rodin Motorsport in the GB3 Championship for next year.
Whilst Pulling is aware that she can wrap-up the title next time out in Qatar, she reiterated that for now, it’s an ‘if’, not ‘when’.
“All season I think we’ve been very grounded,” she said. “It’s obviously been an incredible year so far, but I know there’s still hard work to do. It’s not over till it’s over, but at this point in the championship, I’ve got to really mess it up to not seal the deal, so I’m just going to focus on keeping on doing what I’m doing and hopefully in the end we can come out on top and get that prize.
“It’s an incredible opportunity that the Academy are providing for the champions. It’s a new car, it’s been packaged, which is also very exciting. It’s the closest to an FIA car.
“I think it’s a really, really good championship to build and learn and craft and understand animals. I’ve not driven a car for a while, ever since I’ve done this, so I’m definitely going to be trying to get the championship and get the prize.”
Pulling ‘looking forward’ to Nissan test
Pulling was speaking from Jarama, where she is preparing to take part in Friday’s groundbreaking all-female FIA Formula E test for the Nissan squad.
She revealed that her links to Alpine were crucial, and the late venue change due to the floods in Madrid have given her the opportunity for an intense simulator session with the team.
“I’ve known for a while, I think since it was really announced that there was a Formula E test taking place.
“I’ve got a really good relationship with Alpine, so it made sense. I was thrilled with them and the opportunity to work with a manufacturer like Nissan is incredible, and obviously they’ve had very good results. They won the last race of the season last year, so I’m looking forward to working with them and putting their programme to work.”
“I actually did my simulator prep quite late, which at one point I felt quite unprepared, but then it ended up being the best thing as I did it this Monday, so we’d already known that there was a change in venue, we’d known that we’re now coming to Madrid, so that meant for my simulator session on Monday I was on the right track.
“Actually, because the team hadn’t ran here before, I did a lot of runs for them to learn more, so my programme was more in-depth, so that they could understand more of what they needed to do around this track, which I really enjoyed.
“I just hope that I can help them for their pre-season test.”
The test is the first of its kind and Formula E have enabled fans to watch the session by opening the circuit up to the public, and Pulling says she is “really excited to get going,” adding: “I mean, it’s a big wealth of experience of the girls that are here.
“We obviously have someone like Simona de Silvestro, Alice Powell, who’s been a development driver for F1 for a while, so there’s people that are maybe a bit more experienced than me with this machinery, but I think it also lets you know whereabouts you are and kind of the trajectory of where you’re going.
“Hopefully with this test, we can show that you’re doing a good enough job and work more with the team in the future.
