The new Mercedes star who had an unconventional route to success

Doriane Pin’s journey towards becoming the third champion of Susie Wolff’s all-female F1 Academy has been rather unorthodox. Most drivers who make their name in sportscars do so either as an alternative to pursuing dreams of Formula 1, or once such aspirations have hit the buffers. But for Pin, who checks in with Autosport shortly after turning 22 in January, lessons learned in mid-engined GT3 cars and prototype machinery established the foundations of a promising open-wheel career.

“It definitely helped me to be professional, to know the important points to work on for switching to single-seaters,” agrees Pin, who enjoyed bountiful seat time in professional environments with Iron Dames and Prema alongside more experienced drivers who openly shared their data. Her 2023 World Endurance Championship campaign in LMP2, which peaked with third at Sebring, incorporated regularly overtaking slower GT traffic and drummed in the importance of anticipation. It is an approach the versatile Frenchwoman still uses today.

“I always say, if you anticipate more, the less you will be surprised and it’s exactly my approach,” she adds. “Definitely this learning I had in endurance helped me to perform every time I was on track in F1 Academy.”

Although Pin didn’t race a single-seater until October 2023, when she dipped her toes into the Formula 4 South East Asia Championship aboard the same Tatuus chassis used in F1 Academy, she had previously sampled an older iteration of F4 car almost five years previously in an experience she regards as “a big step forward for my racing career”.

Following a private test with the FFSA – France’s motorsport federation – the 15-year-old Pin joined a baby-faced Isack Hadjar and 16 other teens in entering the Volant Winfield run by the renowned racing school at Paul Ricard in February 2019. The prize was a scholarship to enter French F4.

Where other entrants including Aston Martin-affiliated F2 racer Mari Boya and rising sportscar star Hadrien David were allocated Mygale chassis at random, Pin and the similarly diminutive Hadjar had to share the same mount (number 18), ballasted with extra fuel. A watching Jarno Trulli remarked to Autosport that he approved of Pin’s lines, and she was recognised as the best female driver, while Hadjar was lauded as the best of the 14-year-old contingent.

Pin (far right) took great experience from Winfield having featured alongside a 14-year-old Hadjar (far left)

Photo by: Morgan Mathurin

“It was really positive working with experienced engineers and drivers that now some are in F2 and Isack in F1 now,” remembers Pin, who had only competed in domestic karting after being inspired by father Renaud. “It’s nice to see the evolution of everybody.”

Pin would end 2019 as the French karting champion in the women’s category and has come a long way in the years since. She was plucked from Renault Clios – her maiden season of car racing in 2020 – to join the Iron Dames project the following year. In a breakout 2022, she captured the Ferrari Challenge Europe title and made her WEC debut, as well as taking class honours in the European Le Mans Series finale aboard a Ferrari 488 GTE.

When LMP2 was dropped from the WEC for 2024, Pin initially combined racing the Dames’ Lamborghini Huracan in the new LMGT3 category with a dual programme with Prema across F1 Academy – signed as a member of the Mercedes junior programme – and the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine. A warm-up effort in the F4 UAE championship, where Pin was a race winner among a strong field that included champion Freddie Slater, meant she entered F1 Academy in confident mood. Only a bizarre penalty, for not relenting her pace on the cool-down lap after missing the chequered flag, prevented a clean sweep on her debut weekend in Jeddah.

With three wins as runner-up to Pulling in 2024, Pin was firmly among the favourites for 2025. Remaining with Prema, she duly delivered a polished season

Pin acknowledges that a rib injury sustained during a FRECA meeting at Spa, which caused her to abandon her WEC programme and miss two FRECA rounds, “didn’t really help me for the championship” in F1 Academy, in which second-year driver Abbi Pulling prevailed. But Pin reckons “a challenging period” was another invaluable educational experience.

“You have to learn about how your body is recovering and how you’re healing,” relates Pin. “Everybody is working differently, and we had to maximise the recovery time to be back on track as soon as possible. Not doing Le Mans with Iron Dames was a big shame, but the main goal was F1 Academy and that’s why we stopped everything around to focus on recovery. Ribs can be long and actually we did a pretty good job.”

With three wins as runner-up to Pulling in 2024, Pin was firmly among the favourites for 2025. Remaining with Prema, she duly delivered a polished season. She scored points in all 14 races, never finished lower than sixth, and was on the podium during every race weekend. Pin had a knack for avoiding trouble, showing a level of maturity many of her rivals lacked.

Pin put together a flawless 2025 F1 Academy campaign to take the title

Photo by: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images

“We were the one that was the smartest on track, we stayed out of trouble every time,” she remarks. “I do think maturity counts a lot for a championship battle. We always raced smart and avoided the things that were going around. And when we had to fight, we fought hard. Like China and Miami, where the opportunity has to be taken, we were able to take it.”

Pin certainly had to fight for her wins, because she never started from pole (though twice missed pole by less than a tenth) and had an average qualifying position of third. While main rival Maya Weug (three poles) and Chloe Chambers (four) proved the best single-lap performers, there could be no disputing that Pin was the best racer after she set out her stall early.

She began the season with a statement win at Shanghai, which featured “one of my best overtakes of my racing career” around the outside of polesitter Weug at Turn 1 following a rolling start. She unsurprisingly chooses it as her favourite of the year, above another bold first-corner move on Weug in Singapore.

“We were very, very close from each other,” Pin grins. “And it was the first race of the season; when you start a season like this, it gives you confidence. We were talking a bit [beforehand] about how we’re gonna make the move and the only thing my engineer told me is not to be on the outside… Nobody expected it, even Maya, so that was the best part.”

Victory in the Las Vegas reversed-grid bout, where Weug shunted on the formation lap and leader Alba Larsen crashed out, is another highlight for Pin.

“It rained on the grid,” she remembers. “We were on slicks and we had to decide what to choose if we go on wets; we had the full dry set-up on and just had to maximise the potential. Actually it’s at this point that we made the difference between our main contender, Maya, where we won the race, scored the maximum points and on Sunday it was quite easy to win the title.”

Following her F1 Academy title, Pin has also been upgraded from Mercedes junior to development driver

Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images

Asked if her lack of a pole was the only blemish on her year, Pin is philosophical: “Obviously performance in qualifying was not quite there in 2025. It was more there in 2024. But at the end, the races count more than quali and it’s where we scored the points to be champion.”

Another part-season in FRECA meanwhile was unspectacular, but Pin isn’t unduly concerned. Not doing any pre-season testing in the more powerful cars certainly didn’t help. “That was not the main focus of our season,” she asserts. “We definitely had much less track time than everybody else; when you start straight away at the races and some of [the rivals are] in second year in FRECA, it’s obvious that we’re not gonna easily win races like this. But we really learned throughout those experiences; it’s a completely different car, more powerful and the behaviour is also very different. It was just having more experience in a single-seater car.”

The past two years have grown Pin’s profile immeasurably – she features prominently in season one of the Netflix documentary F1: The Academy, and also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s prime-time show, in which the host asked whether she had ever “gotten out of the car and fought somebody”. “No,” she responded with a cool smile.

"I’ve been learning so many things since the last two years as a junior driver and now as a development driver with a more important role – if I can help out, I’m really happy about it" Doriane Pin

Pin’s 2026 racing programme in the ELMS, returning to LMP2 in an ORECA 07 but in an unfamiliar environment with Duqueine in the pro-am class alongside Asian Le Mans Series qualifying king Giorgio Roda and Formula 2 veteran Richard Verschoor, had yet to be announced when this interview was scheduled to meet Autosport magazine’s print deadline. But Pin’s assertion that her F1 Academy success “definitely opened me some doors for my career” was demonstrated last month with her announcement as a Mercedes development driver, while she will also act as mentor to new Mercedes F1 Academy driver Payton Westcott.

Pin is under no illusion of how important the Mercedes links will be for her future. “The relationship I have and the opportunity I have with Mercedes, you have it once in a lifetime,” she enthuses. “I’ve been learning so many things since the last two years as a junior driver and now as a development driver with a more important role – if I can help out, I’m really happy about it.

“We can’t wait to work closely with them and also it will definitely help me for my racing career to [know] about all the technical stuff. It’s very positive for me.”

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the March 2026 issue and subscribe today. 

Pin picked up her F1 Academy title trophy at the Autosport Awards

Photo by: Tristan Fewings / LAT Images via Getty Images