All ten Formula 1 teams have signed fresh multi-year agreements to continue running cars in F1 Academy, the women's single-seater series entering its third season. The commitment—spanning 2025 through at least 2027—anchors a junior category structure that now resembles F2 and F3 in institutional durability, if not yet commercial scale. Each team fields one car with a rookie and one with a second-year driver, creating 20 seats across a calendar that runs seven race weekends supporting F1 Grands Prix.

The extension arrives the same week Formula 1 announced Sephora as title sponsor through 2027, a beauty-category play that sources familiar with F1 Academy's P&L estimate brings $5M to $7M annually into a series budget thought to run $10M to $12M per year when factoring team subsidies, logistics, and prize funds. Team participation remains subsidized—F1 covers baseline operational costs, while teams absorb integration expenses like personnel travel and garage setup. The model mirrors early-stage F2 economics, where commercial partners and governing-body underwriting offset the gap until viewership and sponsor demand justify standalone profitability.

The unanimous recommitment is notable for what it isn't: a negotiation. When F1 Academy launched in 2023, team principals privately questioned whether sustained participation made sense absent clear sponsor ROI or driver-development yield. Two seasons in, the calculus has shifted. Aston Martin signed 15-year-old Ella Lloyd to its young driver program in December. Alpine brought Abbi Pulling into simulator work. Red Bull added Maya Weug to its junior roster. The pathway now produces contractual outcomes, not just PR cover. Team bosses who initially treated F1 Academy as a favor to Stefano Domenicali now see it as minor-cost optionality on a $200M annual driver budget—particularly with FIA superlicense points now awarded to the top three finishers, creating formal ladder parity.

The timing also matters inside F1's governance structure. Zak Brown sent a letter to the FIA this week alleging "A/B team" dynamics distort competitive balance, a complaint aimed at Red Bull's relationship with RB and Aston Martin's use of Mercedes wind-tunnel data. By locking all teams into a shared junior infrastructure, F1 Academy becomes Exhibit A in the counterargument: uniform junior-series participation levels the development playing field, at least symbolically. Whether that holds water in a paddock where Red Bull runs two full teams and Ferrari supplies three power units is debatable. But the optics of collective junior investment give Liberty Media a talking point when fielding criticism about uneven resource access.

Watch for two follow-on moves. First, sponsor appetite beyond Sephora. If a second title-category partner signs before mid-2025, the series crosses into operational breakeven, changing team subsidy conversations for the next contract cycle. Second, FIA superlicense-point expansion. Current rules award 15 points to the champion, 12 to second, 10 to third. If that's increased—say, to match F3 Asia's 25-15-10 structure—F1 Academy becomes a credible path to the 40 points required for a superlicense, not just a resume line. The draft regulation proposal circulates inside the Single-Seater Commission in March.

The deal reaffirms what Liberty suspected when it launched the series: a women's category works better as mandated infrastructure than as market experiment. All ten teams are in because opting out became more awkward than writing the check.