There has not been a race weekend in F1 Academy this season without Abbi Pulling winning at least one of the two races — and the street circuit of Marina Bay didn’t change this impressive statistic. The English driver backed by Alpine saw her sixth victory in 2024 earlier today, starting from pole position and dominating Race 1.
What’s even more important about this weekend is the fact Pulling is widening the gap to her closest rival in terms of winning the Drivers’ Championship, Doriane Pin, and already having one hand on the trophy. The difference to the Mercedes driver currently stands at 82 points with five races to go.
Even though Pin hoped to challenge Pulling, the Frenchwoman starting from third, the pole-sitter didn’t let anyone come close to her during the shortened distance of 11 laps of racing — not even Ferrari’s Maya Weug in P2, which Pin didn’t get through to stand higher on the podium.
“To be honest, I put all my focus on the race start. I knew that I just needed to get off the line and yeah, it was a great launch and I just controlled the lead from there,” Pulling admitted in reflection of her yet another brilliant performance.
“I saw that Maya [Weug] was close to begin with, but I knew that if I just kept consistent, I could, you know, keep bridging the gap. Even if it’s a tenth a lap, it’s a tenth a lap. And honestly, I can’t thank the team enough, they’re doing an amazing job, and I’m just doing everything with what they’ve given me.”
The Singapore Grand Prix is known for its extreme conditions, be it humidity and heat or the tight turns of a street circuit. With most of the drivers being new to the track, it was crucial to get as much information and experience as possible during Friday’s practice session, so they could use it in Qualifying later that day.
However, because of a rain last night, the rubber that was left on the track was washed off, the track evolved in a different direction and the conditions changed a bit again for the race — which is something Pulling noticed.
“Yeah, it was a little bit [different]. I mean, going into Qualifying, FP, FP1 had happened, so there was a lot of rubber down. I actually hit a curb really hard on my first push lap because I didn’t realize how much grip there was.”
“So yeah, today it was a bit more… got a bit more reserved and managed the tyres a bit more. Obviously, we haven’t done any long runs so it was interesting to see how the tyre evolves, but we managed to keep within a tenth for every lap to be honest. So yeah, really happy with the pace,” the English driver commented.
Tomorrow for Race 2, she will be starting on pole once again and every fan will be intently watching and wondering if she can win the championship title. But even through the pressure around it all and with one hand on the trophy already, Pulling still wants to go into Sunday’s race with the same thinking as always.
“Honestly, I’ve kept the same mindset all year, and it just seems to be working. I’m not putting any pressure on myself, I’m keeping a cold head. I do a lot of work on my mental side of gazing performance systems, and it really, really helped me this year.”
“[I] just go out there and do the best I can every time and if that’s P1 that’s P1, if it’s not, it’s not. And then we… If I [don’t] I will reflect why it isn’t, but this weekend it’s been pretty phenomenal so far.”
“If it’s anywhere where I wanted to have a good result, it was here. It’s an amazing track and I absolutely love racing around these streets,” she revealed.
Now, Pulling has time to look at the data, prepare for Race 2 and give it everything — as she said, if it’s P1 it’s P1, if it’s not, it’s not. But something tells us that at this stage, she and her team Rodin Motorsport would be pleased with the P1 like today.
