Formula E has moved to ensure F1 Academy frontrunners can be part of its second all-female test at Valencia this October after a date clash emerged, while plans to add a support series that is expected to have a significant female element have moved closer to fruition.
Formula 1's all-female development series F1 Academy and Formula E are both holding tests in the final week of October, with Formula E again reserving two three-hour sessions for an all-women test as it did at Jarama last year.
Talks between the two series were held and F1 Academy drivers that have a berth with a Formula E team will be allowed to leave the Bahrain F1A test early to get to Valencia for the FE test - which has now been switched from the original Thursday slot to Friday that week to make it more logistically feasible for drivers to do both.
F1 Academy frontrunners Alisha Palmowski, Ella Lloyd, Alba Larsen, Chloe Chambers and Nina Gademan are expected to have Formula E test chances, joining the likes of F1A graduates Abbi Pulling and Bianca Bustamante, plus triple W Series champion Jamie Chadwick.
Lloyd, Chambers and Palmowski all took part in last November's first all-female test.
Outside of all-female tests Chadwick has the most experience of Formula E, having tested for Jaguar in Gen2 and more recently at the extra Jeddah free practice session in February and the Berlin rookie test in July.
Pulling and Bustamante each hold permanent positions with Nissan and Cupra Kiro respectively and will be part of their teams' development and simulator programmes for the forthcoming season, which begins at the Sao Paulo E-Prix in early December.
Formula E has mandated that each team must field at least one driver in each session at the Valencia test.
Support series moves closer
Formula E is still looking seriously at adding a support series and potentially running at least pilot races in its 2026-27 season.
That will be when the current Gen3 Evo cars are replaced by Gen4s, and organisers have long been looking at how the outgoing cars could be utilised in a feeder championship.
Formula E's vice-president of sporting, Beth Paretta, is believed to have been tasked earlier this year to look into the feasibility of such a series running at some events in 2027.
Formula E acquired some intellectual property assets of the defunct W Series in March 2024 including trademarks, pending trademark applications, social media accounts and domain names. It is understood that any new feeder series would be for mixed-gender competition but with a strong female element.
Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds told The Race recently that Paretta was having "a live conversation" with a manufacturer in the series already and that "these amazing cars in these agile Gen3 Evo cars" offered a ready-made feeder series option.
"There has to be an opportunity to use them and get value out of that investment and to bring through young drivers into electric racing," said Dodds.
"Once the Gen4 launches, where there's an opportunity to deploy and do something with those Gen3 Evo cars, we might.
"The challenge I've given Beth is that we want more activity on track. We also want to create a pathway for people to come through into electric racing."
The electric Mini based series known as NXT Gen Cup could also re-emerge as a part-time support series to Formula E soon after recent talks reignited the possibility.
The moves come 18 months after an original deal for the series to race with Formula E floundered because a financial hurdle proved too difficult to negotiate. It would have been only Formula E's second support championship, after the short-lived Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy that ran from 2018 to 2020.
The first race was supposed to take place at Misano in April 2024 before rounds in Monaco, Berlin and London. However, despite some aspects of its paddock being built at Misano, the series never took off after the arrangement collapsed.
"We're back in discussion with them as we like them and that's a possibility," confirmed Dodds.
NXT Gen Cup, which is based in Sweden, had a German-based 2025 calendar, supporting the DTM at its annual Norisring event and also at the Sachsenring, where its season finale took place two weeks ago.
