Doriane Pin, like many who excel in motorsports, has been in a race car since her grade school days. She began karting at the age of nine, going to events alongside her father, and quickly made her mark in the sport by claiming the French Championship in 2019 at age 15.
Pin’s early career success isn’t a first in racing. A number of Formula One drivers carved their way through the days of karting and early levels of driving to put themselves in position to reach the pinnacle of motorsports. However, the now 20-year-old Frenchwoman has come onto the scene in a manner that befits her “Pocket Rocket” nickname: suddenly.
No platform has been bigger for Pin than the F1 Academy, a single-seater F1 support series with exclusively women drivers. Since its first season in 2023, the series has aimed to promote the participation of women in the male-dominated world of motorsports and give participants opportunities to advance to the next levels of racing. Pin is racing in her first F1 Academy season as a Mercedes junior driver with the support of Prema Racing.
What began as a self-described "transition year" for Pin has quickly grown into something more. The 20-year-old has positioned herself firmly in second place in the Academy standings, with Rodin Motorsport’s Abbi Pulling—a 21-year-old British driver backed by Alpine F1 Team—nearly clinching the 2024 F1 Academy title at the Qatar Grand Prix in late November.
In her debut Academy season, Pin has tallied three wins and nabbed her fourth and fifth pole positions of the campaign in Qatar. She won the first race at the Lusail International Circuit by a whopping 6.7 seconds before the second race was canceled due to extensive barrier damage that occurred prior to the session.
Though she wasn’t given another opportunity to convert on her second pole position and add to the day’s win count, Pin called the outing “one of the best races of the season.”
“I have an amazing car, and I'm really happy with this achievement,” she told reporters after the race. “It means that we made some improvement during the season, it's paying off, and we are showing this on track.”
Improvement would be an understatement considering how quickly Pin has ascended through the different levels of racing. After her karting championship, there was no clear path forward for the French driver, but she managed to carve out her own path. She made a brief move up to the French-based Renault Clio Cup before landing a full-time spot with the Iron Dames, a project founded by former President of the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission Deborah Mayor dedicated to increasing opportunities for women across all racing disciplines. Pin gives a nod to both the Iron Dames and her country’s red, white and blue flag colors with her racing helmet design.
The move allowed Pin to break into endurance racing where she competed across a number of series’ from 2021 to ‘23. She quickly impressed and became the first woman to be named the FIA’s World Endurance Championship Revelation of the Year in ‘23. At the end of last year, she switched from endurance racing to single seat cars and finished second in the Formula 4 South East Asian championship—a vote of confidence before signing on with the Mercedes junior program and F1 Academy at the start of 2024.
By climbing the ladder so quickly, Pin has had to manage her rising celebrity. She appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! when the F1 paddock returned to the United States ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton, a seven-time F1 world champion, namechecked Pin when asked which drivers he would select if he were to ever start a team of his own. Each instance is evidence that Pin is quickly becoming a name that racing fans should familiarize themselves with.
From there? Pin’s goal remains to find her way into an F1 seat. Only five women have entered a Grand Prix at the highest level and only two have actually started a race, the most recent being Italian Lella Lombardi in 1976. A number of other women, including current F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff, have participated in non-competitive and testing sessions with F1 teams since. However, since Wolff ran in practice sessions at the British and German Grands Prix in 2014, no woman has participated in an F1 race weekend.
Pin aims to change that and given her the rapidness of her ascent, she’s on the right track.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Doriane Pin’s Rapid Rise Through Racing’s Ranks Is Just Getting Started.
