{"id":290274,"date":"2025-11-17T11:28:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290274\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T11:28:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T11:28:09","slug":"mclaren-racing-announces-f1-academy-expansion-and-signing-of-ella-hakkinen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/290274\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren Racing announces F1 Academy expansion and signing of Ella H\u00e4kkinen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsport.com\/team\/mclaren\/10\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">McLaren<\/a> Racing has announced an expansion in its Driver Development Programme with two new recruits and a second car in F1 Academy.<\/p>\n<p>The Woking outfit currently fields one car in the all-female racing series, driven by Ella Lloyd. The 20-year-old will be joined by Ella Stevens in 2026 in a second McLaren-backed car operated by Rodin Motorsport. In addition to Stevens, McLaren has also signed Ella H\u00e4kkinen to the Driver Development Programme; she will be testing single-seaters in preparation for 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile I recognise that more remains to be done to increase female representation in motorsport,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0immensely proud of the progress\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0made in this space,&#8221; McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hope this signals to all the amazingly talented female\u00a0karters, drivers, engineers, mechanics,\u00a0marketeers\u00a0and accountants out there that our sport is open to all and deeply committed to keeping up the incredible momentum we have seen over the past few years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are so many opportunities both at and away from track and\u00a0I want to thank NEOM for partnering with us in this space to help us open more pathways for women.\u00a0To now have three talented young female drivers in our Driver Development\u00a0Programme is\u00a0really exciting, and I cannot wait to see them hit the track.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>   <img decoding=\"async\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/ella-lloyd-rodin-motorsport.jpg\" alt=\"Ella Lloyd, Rodin Motorsport\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p class=\"title\">Ella Lloyd, Rodin Motorsport<\/p>\n<p class=\"photographer\">Photo by: Andy Hone \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Ella Stevens<\/p>\n<p>At 19 years old, Stevens is the only woman to win in the KZ2 karting class in the United Kingdom. The British driver secured the runner-up position in the 2025\u00a0British KZ2 Karting Championship.<\/p>\n<p>Ella\u00a0H\u00e4kkinen<\/p>\n<p>H\u00e4kkinen, age 14, has become the youngest signing to McLaren&#8217;s Driver Development Programme. She is the daughter of two-time Formula 1 champion Mika\u00a0H\u00e4kkinen and has already enjoyed an impressive start to her career, taking her first major international victory at the\u00a02024\u00a0Champions of the Future Academy in Cremona.<\/p>\n<p>            We want your opinion!<\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-auto\">What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?<\/p>\n<p>            <a href=\"#\" class=\"ms-link text-link font-bold\">Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mt-1 text-body\">&#8211; The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren Racing has announced an expansion in its Driver Development Programme with two new recruits and a second&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,70316,813,816,913,167123,85,1511],"class_list":{"0":"post-290274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-f1-academy","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-mclaren","15":"tag-mclaren-racing-announces-f1-academy-expansion-and-signing-of-ella-hu00e4kkinen","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-trendingteam"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}