F1 Launches F1 Academy Team Line-up

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On 16 December 2022, F1 Academy confirmed the five teams that would form its inaugural grid. It was not the championship’s first headline, but it was the moment the project started to look less like an announcement and more like a racing series.

New championships are easy to announce and harder to build.

A month after Formula 1 had revealed the creation of the all-female category, the series confirmed the five teams that would contest its first season: ART Grand Prix, Campos Racing, Carlin, MP Motorsport and PREMA Racing. Each outfit would field three cars, creating a 15-car grid for 2023.

Those names brought immediate credibility. These were not improvised entries or lightly dressed branding exercises. They were established junior-series teams with real experience in developing young drivers and running competitive single-seater programmes.

If F1 Academy was supposed to help close the gap between karting, junior formulas and higher levels of the ladder, this was the point where that intention gained some proper structure.

More than a list of names

On paper, a team line-up can look like administrative filler. In practice, it often tells you whether a new category has real foundations.

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By securing experienced operators from across junior single-seater racing, the series made clear that it wanted to be taken seriously as a development category rather than treated as a marketing side project with nice branding and vague promises. Formula 1 had already positioned the championship as a route to support and prepare young women for progression through the sport. Confirming the teams gave that ambition machinery, personnel and a paddock ecosystem.

That is when a series starts to feel real. Someone has to run the cars, find the pace, manage the weekends and build the habits drivers actually learn from. Slogans do not handle tyre pressures.

Why this announcement mattered

The significance of the date lies less in spectacle than in definition.

F1 Academy was entering a part of the motorsport world where credibility is earned through detail. Who is running the cars matters. Who has experience matters. Whether the championship can place drivers in a demanding but recognisable competitive environment matters. The 16 December announcement answered those questions reasonably well from the start.

It also showed that F1 Academy was being built in a way that connected it to the wider junior ladder. ART, Campos, Carlin, MP and PREMA were all known quantities in that world. Their involvement helped place the series within existing single-seater culture rather than off to one side of it.

That made a difference, because one of the risks facing any new category designed around access or representation is that it gets viewed as separate from the “real” pathway. F1 Academy needed to avoid that. This team line-up helped.

An early building block, not the finished picture

The announcement did not solve everything. No team line-up can.

Questions about visibility, long-term opportunity, funding and how effectively the series would feed drivers into higher categories were always going to take longer to answer. Those issues are measured over seasons, not press releases. But this was still a central early milestone because it moved the conversation from theory to framework.

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A championship had been announced in November. By mid-December, it had teams, shape and a clearer sense of intent.

That may sound modest, but motorsport often turns on exactly this kind of step. Before there are races, there has to be a structure that can support them. Before there is momentum, there has to be something more tangible than a logo and a launch statement.

Why 16 December 2022 is worth remembering

F1 Academy’s first team line-up was not the loudest moment in the series’ history, and it was never likely to be. But it was one of the essential ones.

This was the day the championship’s opening season began to take on an actual competitive outline. The five-team line-up gave the series weight, connected it to proven junior-racing expertise and made its broader purpose easier to take seriously.

So 16 December 2022 stands as a proper early marker for F1 Academy. Not the day the racing began, but one of the days the project became believable.

FAQ

Which teams were announced for the inaugural F1 Academy season?
The five teams confirmed on 16 December 2022 were ART Grand Prix, Campos Racing, Carlin, MP Motorsport and PREMA Racing.

How many cars were on the inaugural F1 Academy grid?
The original 2023 line-up was built around a 15-car grid, with each of the five teams entering three cars.

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