The 20-year-old from Spalding, UK arrived at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo seven days on from a decidedly mixed start to the 2023 season at Red Bull Ring, in which the Alpine Academy driver salvaged three top-ten finishes after being sent from pole position to the back on technical grounds.
On this occasion, however, it would be the contentious issue of track limits that undid Pulling’s efforts in qualifying. Having provisionally secured third and fourth in the two qualifying sessions, Pulling was adjudged to have exceeded track limits in the former and was put to the back.
From there, things proved equally tough in race trim. After just missing out on points with P11 in the opener, the former W Series star was forced to take evasive action and sustained damage in another driver’s incident, and she could only bring the car home in 12th despite a bright start.
But, starting back up at the sharp end for Sunday’s finale, Pulling was finally able to validate the true performance of driver and car and score her first podium finish in Formula 1 ®’s new, all-female series, taking third.
Pulling sits seventh overall following the weekend’s action and will return to Spain for the next three rounds of F1 Academy, at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on 20-21 May.
Abbi Pulling said:
“Qualifying, understandably, was pretty frustrating, having qualified up front and then had all my lap times taken away from me. That left me to battle my way through from the back again, which is becoming a pretty familiar feeling!"
“We struggled for pace in the hot conditions all weekend, so I’m working hard with the team at Rodin Carlin to get that figured out and to see where we can improve for Barcelona, and what direction we need to go in, setup-wise.
The third race was much more positive, and it’s great to get my first podium of the year, but it’s been hard to be happy about it, because we know we have a lot of work to do to close the gap, in terms of pace."
“We’ve got two days of testing now, which is really positive for us. It’s perfect, really, and it gives us an early chance to figure out what we need to. There’s also a bit from my side to improve upon, but once we get that all ironed out, we should be in a good spot.”
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