Guest blog by Thiemo Albers-Daly
Picture it. It’s a Saturday morning, bright and early and the sun is already beating down on you with a balmy twenty five degrees. There’s not a cloud in the sky but there’s a little breeze and the heat isn’t melting you just yet. The cicadas are chirping as one in the distance in what will become a constant background ambience throughout the weekend. All of this is being perceived by you as you stand on the viewing deck of the main building at the Paul Ricard Circuit in Le Castellet and bar a few others, you’re there alone and able to soak up the scene before you in peace.
Then, like a lion waking from a slumber and making an almighty roar, a car bursts into life somewhere down below, signalling that the first practice session of the day for F1 Academy is about to begin and one thought runs through your head at that particular moment in time:
There’s nothing quite like the sound of a single seater car firing up first thing in the morning in the South of France.
As the fifteen cars roll out of the garages, onto the track to do a warm up lap before coming down the start finish straight to begin practice properly, one in particular stands out from the pack. With her incredibly distinctive and striking helmet splashed with a mixture of yellow and blue (the yellow changing in brightness in certain lights), Maite Cáceres has proven to be one of the more fascinating drivers on the 2023 grid. With less years under her belt in terms of racing than most on the grid, it’s been a steep learning curve for the Uruguayan. But given her recent performances, you wouldn’t presume this to be the case – that’s how impressively she’s risen to the biggest challenge of her career to date.
As this inaugural season of F1 Academy has progressed, Cáceres has continued to evolve and once again, that was on display in Le Castellet where she achieved her best result to date and was within the slimmest of margins for repeating that, if not bettering it over the course of the rest of the weekend.
Paul Ricard is a circuit where all of the drivers have experience under their belts – so the stakes are higher when it comes to a race weekend of this magnitude, especially as it was to be the setting of the penultimate round of the year. This time though, the track had an altered layout to that which many reading this may be used to if you watch something such as Formula 1 or the European Le Mans Series. Instead of doing the run down to T1 which one would normally have, you turn right halfway down this part of the track and go through a chicane of sorts, coming out just before T8 on the F1 Circuit and carrying on as one normally would. It’s a quick technical section that if approached correctly, can be used as a tactical place for overtaking when your opponents are potentially least expecting it.
For FP1, Maite began as she meant to continue. With tyre strategy, track positioning and a limited amount of time available, there wasn’t any room for errors and come the end of the first session, Cáceres was the 4th fastest in Sector One, 7th fastest in Sector Two and was P10 overall.
Methodical, calm and focused, Cáceres went one better by finishing in P9 in FP2. One needs only to look at both practice session results from the last two rounds at Monza and Zandvoort where she finished in P15 to see what a big step she’d already taken in the early part of the weekend.
But there aren’t any points for practice and with qualifying up next, it was still all very much to play for. Both qualifying sessions were held back to back to one another with only a five minute break between them with each one being incredibly competitive and they were a perfect example of why you can’t simply base an opinion on a driver by their starting position alone – you have to look at their data. For example, Maite continued on her excellent form and pulled off her best qualifying performance since Valencia at the start of the season. She came across the line in P10 – just 0.294 seconds away from Pole Position! It is absolute madness that such a small gap could mean the difference between P1 and P10 but that was how this particular cookie crumbled and also perfectly demonstrated just how close Maite is to the top of the pack where the likes of Marta Garcia and Abbi Pulling can be found.
For Q2, the gaps between all fifteen drivers were incredibly tight once again, with less than a second separating first from last. The evolving nature of the track as well as the short amount of track time available really came into play here and Maite was just 0.725 away from Pole, putting her slightly on the backfoot in P13 for the third of Sunday’s races. Despite this, it’s still one of the strongest showings by the Uruguayan this year.
With the end of qualifying came the inevitable debriefs to round out the day and to ensure the drivers are in the right headspace before going into Sunday’s packed day of racing. Watching the Campos team in action after a busy and fruitful day is fascinating. With only eleven people in the team, excluding the drivers, there’s a very familial atmosphere among them – appropriately fitting given that it’s Campos. The phrase “we win together and we lose together” comes to mind here and has never felt more fitting than it does for a tightly packed team such as this.
It’s all pretty quiet after qualifying. There are celebrations for some, frustration for others. A few bits with the media, some photos get taken and just like that, most of the (albeit very limited) number of guests and fans that came to watch have vanished and the small teams go about packing away, tidying and organising. Everyone’s focus is now on tomorrow.
Sunday morning dawns and there’s immediately a fun vibe to the day. Driver warm ups take place, there’s laughing and happy greetings all around. Naturally, things get a little more serious afterwards as some more analysis from the previous day’s on track action takes place, with Nerea Marti looking in on Maite’s laps, perhaps hoping to learn something else to use for own race. As Nerea and Lola go about warming up a little more and greeting their guests, Maite keeps working with her headphones in and her game face on.
In the blink of an eye, it’s time to race. Continuing the buoyant mood that kicked the day off, race one was the perfect start to the day’s action in many ways. Cáceres had an epic launch off the line to get straight into P9. From there, like a lion hunting a gazelle, she was chasing down Carrie Schreiner ahead of her in P8. For much of the race, Maite was stuck in the dirty air behind her, able to get close but not quite able to capture. Then, on the penultimate lap heading down into T1, the Uruguayan Lioness pounced. In true racing driver style, she went for a gap, made it stick and immediately began to build a gap as she began to chase down P7.
P8 was the best it was going to be though as Maite simply ran out of laps, equalling her best result of the season but with the added bonus of collecting points for it on this occasion.
Lola Lovinfosse finished in P3 and Nerea Marti stormed past Pulling on Lap 1 into T1 to claim first and pulled out a gap and then proceeded to win the race in what would be a double podium for Campos.
Naturally, the podium celebrations were heartfelt and full of jubilation but there was also a nice touching moment where Maite tells Nerea and Lola where she finished and they’re genuinely really happy for her and her continued improvement up the field. It’s a feel good showing of team spirit.
It wouldn’t be outlandish to presume that the double podium would outshine Maite’s P8 but it shouldn’t be undervalued. It’s yet another positive step in the right direction and should show Campos – as well as any other potential suitors for 2024 – that this is just the beginning for Maite and the potential being unlocked here is nothing short of powerful.
Things take a little while to calm down following the race but before too long, it seems as if the team’s success is a distant memory as attention pivots to the second race of the day. However, the second of Sunday’s races becomes a quick reminder that fortunes can change in an instant in motorsport and there are no guarantees.
Lola DNFs due to car trouble, Nerea can only make it as far as P5 and despite a strong start where Maite moved from P10 to P9 and began to quickly close in on P8, she slipped down to P12 by the end of the race, essentially because of tyre wear and a couple of other technical factors. It’s a somewhat harsh knock back for the team but that’s racing.
From a neutral fan perspective it was a good race with Garcia winning, Buhler P2 and Amna Al Quabasi P3, giving us an entirely different podium from the first race, but it’s still frustrating nevertheless to see a driver with such promise become hindered in her ability to demonstrate it through no real fault of her own.
There was still one race to go though and absolutely nothing to lose. It was the hottest race of the day with an air temperature of 30 degrees celsius and if you could feel it outside of the car, you could definitely feel it inside the car. Maite progressed from P13 to P12 in the race but this definitely doesn’t tell the full story with the field incredibly close to one another throughout with Maite just half a second away from P10, visibly ahead of her. Close but no cigar. By comparison, her teammates also struggled as they both finished where they qualified, P3 for Lola and P5 for Nerea.
Much like the driver’s themselves, it can be easy to fall into the trap of not appreciating what’s in front of you now in pursuit of more later. When the car isn’t quite in the right window or when you can see the points ahead of you within touching distance but you can’t quite reach them, being disheartened can come naturally to you. But in hindsight, those feelings aren’t necessarily negative; instead they’re motivators to keep pushing and striving for more, while also learning to appreciate what you’ve just achieved. In Le Castellet, for Maite this means a strong performance all weekend long that continues to build on the formula for success that she’s creating for herself and can reassure her that she is progressing in the right direction and getting ever closer to those just ahead of her.
For me, it’s a reminder that with F1 Academy, women in motorsport and the wider world in general beyond racing, it really is a case of if you can see it, you can believe it – but when you’re out on track, you can also feel it and there’s not much that can beat that feeling.
Maite Cáceres’ story is only just beginning. This year so far has shown racing drivers of all abilities everywhere that it’s never too late to get into racing and that if you want something badly enough, you’ll find a way to make it happen. Your passion, dedication and perseverance will not only serve you well, but will show everyone around you that you’re the real deal. Witnessing Maite’s approach trackside in and out of the car reaffirmed that she wants nothing else but to succeed at what she loves and that she’s got what it takes to go the distance.
If this is the foundation on which Matie is building her racing career – and it is – then we as motorsport fans have a lot to look forward to in the future. Let’s just hope that she gets the chance to further realise her immense potential. Bring on Texas.
Paddock Sorority 
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