The year-old has never shied away from the fact that motorsport is a cut-throat business, particularly after budget difficulties forced the Briton to curtail her British F4 campaign three years earlier. With the weight of that uncertainty, the Alpine junior could have easily crumbled.
Yet the driver that emerged was one filled with grit, maturity and an abundance of raw speed who would storm to title glory and take the prize of a fully-funded GB3 Championship seat. F1 Academy: Story of the season. Obviously, there are some who are lucky enough on the finance side of things. Showing few weaknesses, she bagged a record-breaking nine wins out of a possible 14, 10 pole positions, five Grand Chelems pole position, fastest lap and winning while leading every lap and never once finished off the podium.
Delivering back-to-back pole positions and victories next time out in Miami, the Alpine driver missed out on a clean sweep weekend by only one point for the fastest lap in Race 1 and she set the tone for the rest of her year. To prosper from any mistakes that were made in front, I put myself there and the people around me made sure I knew that. It just fuelled me for the rest of the season to prove a point that I deserve to be there. But the finale in Abu Dhabi, we were very confident that we had quite a lot of pace there and I was quite confident in what I needed to do there as well.
Maya Weug left and Doriane Pin right gave Pulling a challenge at times last year. I really thought that me and her would be going wheel-to-wheel until the very last lap. A new challenge awaits Pulling in the GB3 Championship. Don't miss your chance to be at the first Grand Prix of and experience the season-opener in Melbourne Oakes insists Doohan will get 'fair crack' for Alpine amid Colapinto signing. Abbi Pulling.
