Earlier this year, Nicole Havrda spoke with Nicole on the Fast Forward Podcast. The F1 Academy rookie spoke about her 2025 F1 Academy season, the camaraderie among drivers on the grid, and why female representation is crucial for increasing exposure in motorsport.
How is Havrda finding her first season of F1 Academy?
The Canadian driver first began her karting career in 2019, quickly making an impression by winning the Calgary Shootout. She continued her strong form in 2021, finishing as Vice Champion in the Junior Rotax Challenge Finals.
In 2022, Havrda made her open-wheel debut, earning two top-10 finishes in the Indian Racing League Championship. Since then, she has gained further experience in competitive series such as the Formula Pro USA Winter Series and the Formula Regional Americas Championship, steadily building her path toward the F1 Academy grid.
When asked about her rookie season in the 2025 F1 Academy season, Havrda said that the racing has been “really good,” and added that she has learned a lot and is taking in every experience.
“Really good, really good, really like, just, you know, the marketing, I think, is huge. The racing is really good, and just, you know, learning a lot, because like, you know, the first race in China was quite a lot, because, you know, when you get out of the pits, and you sit in front of the like F1 garages, it’s quite crazy, and then looking up at the crowd and stuff, it’s like, it’s like kind of surreal. Like, you’re just kind of like, it’s actually happening.”
“Like, yeah, it’s quite crazy, and then, seeing like other F1 drivers, and, seeing like, even Susie Wolfe, it’s crazy, to have her like, in her paddock and stuff. Yeah, it is quite surreal, like, just everything. But honestly, it’s really good, just, you know, learning, especially since it’s my first year, so I’m just learning with the team, and learning the car, and I’ve never driven this car, so it’s just all about, yeah, just kind of like, everything coming at me.”
The track she was most excited for this year in F1 Academy
Growing up in Canada, Havrda was naturally most excited to race on home soil for the F1 Academy 2025 season. At the same time, she’s also looking forward to finishing the season in Las Vegas, although she admits to being slightly concerned about racing at night and the challenging temperatures there.
“I gotta say my home race in Canada, Montreal, I loved Miami and Vegas. Vegas is gonna be so cool.”
“I just think I’m a little worried because it’s cold and we’re in the night, and it’s a desert, so I don’t know about that part. Tires up to temperature might be a little more tricky. Like, that part is fine, because in the car you’re like, actually warm, but I don’t like being out of the car and cold.”
Female representation
TeamViewer recently released a report on Women in Sport Tech, conducted in collaboration with Loughborough University London, which revealed that 86% of women believe visible female leaders are crucial to achieving workplace gender equality. Reflecting on this, Havrda explained that seeing more female representation at a younger age might have introduced her to motorsport earlier. Moreover, she added that while F1 Academy is now highly marketed, it would have been even more encouraging to see that level of visibility when she was growing up
“Yes, 100%. I think the biggest thing when I was growing up and I didn’t see, like, I didn’t see racing at all. And like, there were women that wore racing, like you got Danica Patrick, you got Susie Wolfe, you got a bunch of others. They were there, but it wasn’t marketed.“
“And nowadays, the F1 Academy is so marketed. You literally just go on Instagram and you see it. So it’s like, I mean, you literally go on Netflix now and you see it on there, which is really, really amazing. And just having, you know, it pop up in your face. And I think that’s a big thing nowadays for anything, but it’s just like the marketing is so huge. If I got that when I was younger and saw other women are racing, I think that would have, you know, maybe encouraged me into racing more.“
Inspired by Lewis Hamilton
With little to no female representation around her when she was younger, Havrda instead looked up to Lewis Hamilton after watching him race at her first Formula 1 Grand Prix in Austria in 2018. She explained that having an idol in sport fuels motivation because it proves that reaching the top is possible.
“When I started racing, I was actually inspired by Lewis Hamilton because I was watching him race. And then I looked into his like past and I started watching all his videos and read books and stuff. I was, I was always looking up to him. And I think, you know, having that kind of idol, whether it’s a girl or a guy, I think it’s super important because, you know, they made it there so you can make it there as well.”
The connectedness of the F1 Academy women off track
The F1 Academy grid races across the globe over seven rounds, typically with one event each month from March to November (excluding July and September). Although the drivers are all fiercely competitive, Havrda notes that they actually spend surprisingly little time on track.
“So that one’s pretty interesting to look at because yes, they’re rivals, but only on the track. Yeah. Like when you’re, you know, in the garage, like you literally drive once a day, once on Saturday, once on Sunday. So you don’t actually drive that much. So like most of the time you’re in that like pit where you’re sitting, you’re talking, you’re chatting, you’re trying to like me and my teammate, we’re quite like crazy. We’re chaotic. We’re always over all over the place.”
With this extra time together away from the circuit, she says it’s a welcome change to step off track and chat with the other drivers — especially after a tough race.
“We have fun because you don’t want to just sit there alone and be bored. I think like that would drain me and I would just be, I don’t know. I get bored sometimes very easily. So I just try to, you know, keep entertained.”
“And I think that F1 Academy is really good for that because we’re always like together. We’re so close. Like we’re literally all together. So it’s quite, it’s quite nice to, you know, have each other to like, you know, even when you have a bad race to come off track and be able to talk to them, even though like we were racing against each other, we still understand each other and we still talk and like talk about it, whatever happened. And it’s just, you know, having each other there.”
