Jess Edgar ended her F1 Academy campaign in style, qualifying on pole position for the final race of the season and pulling away from the pack to score her maiden series victory in Texas.
With the series joining Formula 1 for the first time at the United States Grand Prix, the 18-year-old delivered an excellent performance at Circuit of the Americas, digging deep with her final lap in Qualifying 2 to take pole away from champion Marta Garcia.
Lining up fifth for the opening contest, Jess showed strong pace in the early stages, moving into fourth position. Battling with then title hopeful Lena Bühler, she fell back to fifth, before a slight error at turn 12 cost another place, crossing the line sixth.
She was on the move at the start of race two, gaining third as Bianca Bustamante stalled off the line. Coming out of turn one however, Bühler managed to get a run and past the Brit. Jess refused to give up and one lap later eased her way past Chloe Chong to regain a third position she would hold to the line, scoring her third podium of the year.
It went even better for her in the final contest, as she had a clean start from pole position, held the lead, and opened a two second gap to the field, comfortably earning her first F1 Academy victory on the biggest stage of the season.
After competing in front of a weekend audience of some 432,000 fans, Jess will now enjoy some time off with her family, before making a decision on her 2024 racing plans, with announcements to follow in due course.
Jess Commented,“I am super proud of what we’ve achieved, and it was definitely the weekend to do it! F1 Academy has given me an amazing opportunity this year and to win in the last round while we are with F1 is an amazing feeling.
“All the hard work we’ve put in this season has really helped my qualifying, which is something me and the team have worked hard for all year, It proves that qualifying is key as starting P1 mattered a lot this weekend!”
I cannot thank Rodin Carlin enough for all their help and support this season and along with Susie Wolff and F1 Academy for creating such a great platform for female racing, the future is very exciting.”
