Following the announcement that Ella would graduate from Karting, with the McLaren Driver Development Programme to form a part of their 2026 F1 Academy squad – she was drafted in at late notice to compete in her first race weekend in a Formula 4 car, at Round 3 of the Formula Winter Series at Portimão.
Ella had never driven the circuit, or a single-seater car in the wet conditions before the weekend – so she was very much thrown in at the deep-end and had to learn quickly!
She improved consistently through the Collective Test sessions, twice putting herself inside the Top-10 in the wet conditions and regularly besting some of the far more experienced Rookie’s and fellow Female Trophy contestants competing this weekend – who had done the previous two rounds and 6 races.
Qualifying 1 was once again in wet and treacherous conditions, causing plenty of on-track mishaps and spray – where clear air was critical and meant only 5 laps were possible in the session.
Ella persevered and posted the 19th fastest time out of the 33 entrants. This also meant she was the fastest Female Trophy driver in class, over 0.3s clear of the next driver - in her debut Qualifying session.
Qualifying 2 took place shortly afterwards, and track position was a bit unkind to Ella in the short session – but she still finished as P2 in the Female Trophy class despite the traffic.
The first race of the weekend on Saturday, started off with more cold and wet weather. Ella made a solid start from the 9th row, but had to take evasive action from a stalled car and an incident ahead.
Despite avoiding the cause, the chain reaction of events put her out of position, dropping her to the back of the field, before a lengthy Safety Car period, left only 5 racing laps in total from the 30-minute race. Ella finished the heavily truncated race in P26 and 4th overall in the Female Trophy Class.
Race 2 on Saturday saw Ella make a solid start to hold her position amongst the huge amount of battling in the opening tour – before moving herself up a position one lap later and to P2 in the Female Trophy.
Ella would move into P18 and into the lead of the Female Trophy runners just a lap later – demonstrating her ever improving pace on her debut F4 weekend.
Sadly 10-minutes into the race, contact would see Ella span around and fall to the back of the field. She recovered well and set a fastest lap-time that was good enough for P8 on the timesheets – as well as finishing only just off the back of the Top-3 in the Female Trophy class.
The final race of the weekend on Sunday marked a trio of wet weather races – with Ella starting from P23. She made a solid start to the race – before an early Safety Car was deployed for an incident that baulked Ella and dropped her to P4 in the Female Trophy Class.
Racing resumed again with 17-minutes to go and Ella gained a position on the restart, before closing in a 2-second gap to fellow Female Trophy drivers in the fight for the Top-3 in class.
Her pace in clear air was excellent, however the spray and ever-drying circuit made overtaking off-line tricky, which prevented her from making further progress.
Ella crossed the line P4 in the Female Trophy, just 0.3s from her next rival in class ahead.
Despite one of the most incredibly challenging debut weekends you could have in terms of weather and preparation…Ella consistently showed ever improving confidence and pace throughout her first race meeting behind the wheel of an F4 car.
With the pace shown in Race 2 a particular highlight – where contact denied her an almost certain Female Trophy victory.
Ella now immediately flies to prepare for F1 Academy Pre-Season testing, before the first round of the season at the Shanghai International Circuit on the 13-15 March.
