- Pin confirms Mercedes is planning private F1 test after Brackley simulator.
- Wolff’s personal backing signals the 22-year-old is edging closer to a race seat.
- A new seat fit is all that separates Pin from the cockpit of a Silver Arrow.
Doriane Pin is waiting for a seat fit. That small, technical detail, a driver settling into a custom-moulded shell before climbing into a Formula 1 car for the first time, is the only thing standing between the 22-year-old French driver and the most important drive of her life.
Mercedes is planning a private F1 test for Pin. The 2025 F1 Academy champion confirmed the news on Formula 1’s Beyond The Grid podcast, revealing that team principal Toto Wolff had personally backed the idea after watching her impress in the simulator at the Brackley factory.
“We had to see how the sim was going, and then it was the potential next step,“ Pin said via f1i.com. “The sim went very well, and that is why they had the idea to put me in a private test and give me the chance to drive the real car.”
From F1 Academy champion to Mercedes development driver
Pin’s rise through the ranks has been sharp and deliberate. She joined the Mercedes Junior Programme in 2024 before her debut season in F1 Academy, the all-female series backed by Formula 1.
She finished runner-up in that first year. Then, in 2025, she came back and won the title on the final race weekend, banking four victories and eight podiums overall.
Across two seasons in the series, Pin won seven races, claimed nine podiums and recorded five pole positions. She finished in the points in all 28 races she started. That kind of record is hard to argue with.
But it was not just results that got her through the door at Brackley.
Bradley Lord, a senior Mercedes representative, explained that Pin’s technical feedback, engineering knowledge and ability to work alongside experienced personnel set her apart.
She was not given the development role as a gesture. She earned it.
Her responsibilities at the team reflect that. Pin works across simulator sessions, factory duties and trackside activities, attending Grands Prix as part of the team.
She also supports and advises Mercedes’ 2026 F1 Academy driver, passing on what she has learnt.
The simulator test that opened the door
Before anyone handed Pin the keys to a Silver Arrow, she had to prove herself in the virtual world first.
Her simulator work at Brackley clearly did more than satisfy the engineers. It convinced Wolff, one of the most demanding decision-makers in the paddock, that she was ready to take the next step.
That is not a small thing.
Pin spoke with quiet certainty when discussing what she wants from the test. “I am really pushing for it,” she said. “Because I want my chance to drive the car and show that there is potential.”
Her target, she made clear, is Formula 1 itself. “I will make sure I am fully ready before jumping in the car in real life.”
When asked on the podcast whether she had completed a seat fit yet, she smiled and said she had not. The detail was small but telling. The test has not happened yet, but it is coming.
A broader career built on proven talent
Pin’s story did not begin with F1 Academy. Long before she raced in the all-female series, she was competing in environments that demanded more.
She has been an Iron Dame since 2021. In 2022, she won the Ferrari Challenge Europe title and took a class victory at the 24 Hours of Spa.
She then moved to single-seaters, finishing runner-up in the 2023 Formula 4 South East Asia Championship before capturing the F1 Academy crown two years later.
Today, she holds development driver roles with two programmes: Mercedes in Formula 1 and Peugeot in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
In February 2026, she was confirmed as part of the Duqueine Team for the European Le Mans Series in the LMP2 Pro-Am class. A month later, Peugeot TotalEnergies announced her as a development driver for their Hypercar effort.
One name looms large in Pin’s story. She has spoken openly about Lewis Hamilton’s influence on her, recalling that he was the driver she first watched as a young girl sitting with her father.
Hamilton’s 2014 championship, his first with Mercedes, was her earliest memory of Formula 1. When she later joined the Mercedes junior programme, Hamilton was still at the team.
He offered her advice. That connection, she has said, meant a great deal. It continued even after Hamilton left for Ferrari ahead of the 2025 season.
What the test would mean historically
The last woman to appear on a Formula 1 race weekend was Susie Wolff, now the managing director of F1 Academy, who drove in a free practice session for Williams back in 2014.
The last to carry out a private test in an F1 car was Jessica Hawkins with Aston Martin in 2023.
Pin is the first woman in more than five years to hold an active development role inside a Formula 1 team. She is also the only woman to have reached that position directly through a series built to produce top-level drivers.
That distinction is important. It tells a different story about what F1 Academy was designed to be.
With the 2026 season already underway and Pin’s simulator performances drawing praise from within the Mercedes camp, the test feels like a question of timing rather than possibility.
Wolff’s backing represents an endorsement that carries real weight inside one of the sport’s most storied teams.
Pin has known what she wanted since she first sat in a kart at nine years old. She has spent the years since then building the case, lap by lap, title by title, one data point at a time.
The seat fit still needs to happen. A date still needs to be set. But when Pin finally straps into that Mercedes, the sport will be watching.
So will a generation of young girls who are only just beginning to believe they could do the same.
