Doriane Pin claimed the Race 2 victory in tricky Shanghai conditions, picking up her first win of the F1 Academy season in a weekend full of Safety Car chaos.
The Iron Dame overtook polesitter Maya Weug for the lead after the Safety Car rolling start and retained the position throughout the race, Weug settled for second place in the end.
Weug finished ahead of Chloe Chambers who rounded off the podium in glorious fashion after overtaking Alba Larsen in the closing stages of the race with a clean move at Turn 1.
The race began under the Safety Car due to drops of oil being spotted around the track, and two extra formation laps were added to help clear some of the on-track dust.
This led to a rolling start after the third formation lap, with Weug leading the pack around the Shanghai International Circuit but a fiery battle was sparked with Pin.
Pin got off to a great rolling start, taking the fight to Weug immediately on the entry into Turn 1 and managed to find a line around the outside of Weug to gain the lead by Turn 3.
She tucked her Prema-operated car neatly behind Weug on the starting straight, and seamlessly squeezed around the Ferrari Academy Driver to pull off the move.
Behind, chaos unfolded as five drivers found themselves in trouble. Tina Hausmann and Nina Gademan made contact heading into Turn 3, which caught out Joanne Ciconte, Aurelia Nobels, and Nicole Havrda.
Nobels was clipped by Chloe Chong, who made contact with the Brazilian driver after the scuffle behind the two initial drivers who crashed, which caused her second retirement of the weekend.
Gademan reported to her race engineer that the Aston Martin-nominated driver came from far behind to clip her, but footage shows that Hausmann locked up on the entry to the corner and took out her Prema teammate in the process.
A full Safety Car was brought out to clear the handful of beached cars on track, and drivers including Ciconte, Havrda and Nobels officially retired from the race on Lap 3.
The race resumed in normal racing conditions on Lap 5 and Pin nailed the restart, she immediately pulled 0.5s away from Weug.
Her fellow Prema Racing teammates had a lot to make up for after the incident earlier, as Gademan ran in 13th place and Hausmann in 14th place, the latter received a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision.
Gademan pulled off a clean overtake on her teammate Hausmann for 13th place, running past the inside of the Aston Martin driver to set her sights on Lia Block running in 12th place.
16-year-old rookie Larsen managed to hold on to her qualifying position of third place throughout all the chaos, setting the fastest lap on Lap 6 as she was forced to defend from Chambers right behind.
Chambers was also under threat from her teammate and Race 1 winner Alisha Palmowski who made an attempt to gain fourth place around Chamber’s inside line at Turn 6 on Lap 7, but Chambers shut the door.
Former Wild Card driver Courtney Crone climbed up to 11th place by Lap 7, passing both Gademan and Hausmann in the early chaos, but was shortly overtaken by an eager Gademan a lap later.
At the front of the pack, Pin led the drivers around the Shanghai International Circuit by 1.2s in what was shaping up to be her first race win of the 2025 season, as Weug fell short of her blistering pace.
The battle for third place was heating up behind as Chambers tailed Larsen into Turn 14 on Lap 8 and briefly overtook the MP Motorsport car, but locked up in the middle of the corner and returned the position.
Emma Felbermayr also jumped into the battle for the podium positions, snatching fourth place from Palmowski at Turn 1 on Lap 9 as Saturday’s race winner struggled with matching the pace of the top three.
Red Bull Ford driver Chambers received another tow on the starting straight on Lap 9 and finally pulled off the long-awaited move on Larsen around the inside of Turn 1 to gain third place.
She tried to cut the two-second gap down to Weug in second place, but ran out of time and settled for third as the two front-runners managed to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack.
The Iron Dame Pin proved victorious in a tricky race with tricky conditions full of more Safety Car chaos, scoring 31 points in an impressive opening weekend after recovering from her injury last season.
Although Weug settled for second place in Race 2, she stood on the podium on Saturday also, taking home 26 points from the weekend to sit just five behind Pin in the Drivers’ Standings.
Chambers claimed the final podium position, her second podium of the weekend, picking up 24 points in the opening round of F1 Academy in Shanghai.
Weug and Chambers are so far only separated by two points in the standings heading into Round 2, as the competition is fierce between the frontrunners.
The 16-year-old rookie Larsen earned a fourth-place finish in her debut F1 Academy appearance, finishing ahead of Felbermayr who recovered well from the early chaos.
Race 1 winner Palmowski claimed sixth.
McLaren-nominated driver Ella Lloyd claimed a seventh-place finish ahead of Campos Racing’s Rafaela Ferreira, who held off rally sensation Block throughout the race.
The Williams driver managed to defend well from an eager Gademan who recovered her race greatly by scoring a 10th-place finish, picking up a point after the incident with Hausmann.
READ MORE – Alisha Palmowski claims chaotic Shanghai victory on F1 Academy debut
