MP Motorsport Team Manager Wouter Blokhuis leaves the 2026 F1 Academy season opener in Shanghai with strong belief in the team’s potential. Fielding Alba Larsen, Nina Gademan and rookie Esmee Kosterman, both Larsen and Gademan showed clear promise, signaling that strong results could come in the near future as the season continues to unfold.
Most notably, despite a challenging qualifying session, Gademan emerged with the strongest results of the trio. The Dutch driver stormed to victory in Race 1 and finished 4th with a charge from 8th in Race 2. However, on the other side of the garage, Larsen started the weekend strongly by securing her best qualifying result to date before misfortunes struck, where a mistake during a safety car restart in Race 1 cost her a potential victory.
Reflecting on the team’s weekend, Blokhuis said: “Mixed feelings, I think we really showed the pace with Nina and Alba. Nina got a bit of bad luck in Qualifying – she should have been easily P3 or P4. Nina showed strong pace winning the race on Saturday and starting P8, finishing P4 – I think that’s a really good achievement.”
“With Alba in P2, I think we showed the pace we have as a team. Unfortunately it didn’t go the way we were hoping today with Alba. Small mistakes, these things can happen. It was the first time for her leading a race with a Safety Car restart, so I understand it from that point of view. We should learn from it so it never happens again.”
Blokhuis “quite happy” with Kosterman’s progress
While both of the team’s experienced drivers showed promising pace, Blokhuis also highlighted the positives in Kosterman’s steady progress throughout the first round of the 2026 F1 Academy season, saying: “She struggled a bit in the Free Practice and made a really good step in Qualifying. She also had a bit of bad luck on the last laps, so I think that could have been closer to the top 10 or top 12, to be honest. I think she deserves to be.”
“Yesterday was a difficult race for her. It’s all new experiences and it was a little bit difficult for her to process it all at the same time, but we had a good debrief. She understands everything and she made a really good step today.”
Although the LEGO-backed driver’s race ended prematurely on Sunday after Jade Jacquet made contact from behind, Blokhuis noted that the team still takes positives from the weekend as they look to bounce back in Montreal.
“Unfortunately, she got taken out, so mixed feelings. We showed the pace with two cars driving at the front. I think everybody leaves the weekend with a good feeling and hopefully we will come back stronger.”
“I have the feeling with Nina and Alba that they are competitive enough and the cars have the speed to always be fighting on the podium, I think the potential is there.”
