03/05/2022
NEWS STORY
Alpine has announced that Alice Powell will officially become the Talent Identification & Development Mentor for the Alpine Academy. Her role will focus primarily on scouting young female talent across all junior series, assessing their potential and analysing how to integrate into the Academy or Affiliate programme.
Once accepted into the Academy, Powell will act as a mentor to the girls, guiding them on fitness, career paths and opportunities. This year Powell is mentoring Abbi Pulling, who joined the Affiliate programme in 2022 and drove a Formula 1 car for the first time in Saudi Arabia in March.
Hailing from Chipping Norton, less than five miles away from Enstone, Powell made history in 2009 as the youngest-ever female driver in the Formula Renault UK Championship. A year later, she became the first female driver to win a Formula Renault Championship race with victory in the BARC competition. She would also finish third in the inaugural running of the W Series in 2019. This included a home win at Brands Hatch.
In 2021, Powell pushed eventual champion Jamie Chadwick all the way to the final race of the season, notching three wins and five podiums en-route to second in the drivers' standings.
Pulling joined the Affiliate program this year, ahead of her second season in the W Series. She recently made history, along with Aseel Al Hamad, as the first women to ever drive Formula 1 cars in Saudi Arabia, getting behind the wheel of the V8-powered E20. Abbi finished seventh in her inaugural W Series campaign, which included a hard-earned podium at the Circuit of the Americas.
The W Series returns this weekend as the Miami International Autodrome hosts the opening round of the 2022 championship on the undercard for the first Formula 1 World Championship race in Miami.
"I'm delighted to join the team," said Powell. "More and more opportunities for women within motorsport are emerging now, but budding drivers often lack guidance and experience in the early days of their career. The Alpine Academy is an extremely useful stepping stone for all drivers. It provides a sense of credibility and has a defined place on the motorsport ladder. Mentoring is very important. We need to change the mindset of young women that these opportunities do exist, but to also give them the resilience to reach out and grab these opportunities with both hands."
"I'm really happy to be working closely with Alice," added Pulling. "I've found the Affiliate programme already to be very beneficial. I've recently had my first drive in a Formula 1 car and enjoyed some other track time ahead of my W Series campaign thanks to the Affiliate programme. It's a really supportive environment which is also really useful for me to hopefully show other young women that the opportunities in motorsport are there, you just need the drive and motivation to seize them."
"We are committed to developing our pool of talent and bringing even more drivers through to F1," said Alpine Academy Director, Julian Rouse. "Through this programme we want to ensure women have an equal opportunity to do so. Alice will be a great asset to the team as we move forward with our Academy and Affiliate programme.
"Her role of identifying young racers, particularly female, and then guiding them through her extensive experience is incredibly useful and reassuring for the emerging potential talents we are seeing now."