Pacey Palmowski seals another podium

Glossop motorsport sensation Alisha Palmowski picked up her fourth podium of the F1 Academy season over the weekend, racing to a second-place finish in Race 2 in Zandvoort. 

The 18-year-old speedster had a strong start in the Netherlands, missing out on a maiden pole position by a meagre 0.039 seconds, with the reverse grid format seeing her line up in P7 on Race 1. 

The Red Bull Racing driver finished the opening race in the position she started it, struggling to keep the pace with her competitors, but managed to turn around her fortunes in Race 2. 

After a tense battle for second place with fellow Brit Ella Lloyd, Palmowski finished a second behind, but climbed above the McLaren driver after she received a five-second penalty for a false start. 

Following the superb achievement, the talented teenager told the Chronicle:  

“We had a great weekend at Zandvoort; the circuit is really old school and technical, but I loved the challenge.  

“It was awesome to get our first podium of the year with a P2 in the main race - we made lots of progress throughout the weekend and my race pace improved a lot between race one and two which is a big positive.  

“I’m super excited now to keep the momentum going ahead of our next weekend.  

“The humidity and heat will make it tough but hopefully we can make a return to the podium and get more solid championship points.” 

Palmowski’s first main race podium sees her close the gap on Lloyd, who occupies fourth place in the overall standings and sits 11 points in front. 

Next up for the former St Phillip Howard student is a trip to Singapore in October, for the penultimate race weekend of the season.