F1 Academy driver Chloe Chambers dreams of racing as a reality show

chloe chambers Doesn’t dream of racing.

Instead, it infiltrates her REM sleep cycle just minutes before she steps into the car. His mind subconsciously shuffles into the routine of silent sitting and then dressing: earbuds, balaclava, helmet with headrest already attached. Then she puts her hands from one glove to the other. Right then left.

“My dreams are like a drama reality show. We skip the actual on-track parts, like watching ‘Drive to Survive,'” Chambers says with a laugh, causing her round wire-rimmed glasses to wobble.

At 20 years old, the MoneyGram Haas and Campos Racing F1 Academy driver has a resume that would make most of his peers jealous. She became the first woman to start on pole and win a race in the Castrol Toyota Racing Series in 2023, joined the official Porsche Junior Team in the same year and won the Porsche Sprint Challenge seven times. Two years ago, she competed in the W Series, the all-female predecessor of the F1 Academy, under Jenner Racing. His junior racing career boasts an impressive list of regional and national championship titles.

When she stood on the top podium step as the first Haas-backed driver to win a race in June – basking in the Spanish sun while “The Star Spangled Banner” blared over the loudspeakers – she added one to her glittering CV. Added more achievements.

Despite talk show appearances and precocious athletic abilities, Chambers does not let racing completely dominate her life. “In any sport or any career path, you’re always going to want something out of it,” Chambers insists. Growing up, she was able to find time for other recreation while racing: swimming, playing the violin, and attending classes. Visions of her on stage in an orchestra hall, potential career paths in a different lifetime, still come to her dreams often.

When she’s not on a plane or inside a race car, Chambers’ life looks like a typical 20-something everyday. She is an online student studying Business Administration and Management at Arizona State University. She watches her “fair share” of Netflix shows, goes out with friends, and watches Formula 1 races at Fuel Social Club, a club for motorsport fans near her parents’ home outside Fort Wayne, Indiana. . She is someone you can easily imagine sitting next to you in a lecture hall. It’s hard to imagine breaking the world record for driving a Porsche 718 Spyder in 47.45 seconds (only with a driver’s permit) or flying to Madrid a few days after talking to the pilot of a Formula E car with 21 other female drivers .

Her surroundings are the opposite of the grand racing career most fans imagine: when she’s not in Jeddah, Singapore or Zandvoort her head rests on one of the four simple cream walls she calls home. When she’s relaxing in her bedroom, she wears a fuzzy wool half-zip sweater, recalling the highlights of her career before most fellow Gen Zers started their careers. “When I went to (high) school, I didn’t really like talking about racing that much, because then I had to explain everything,” she says. “I enjoyed being normal and people just knowing me as Chloe and not as a race car driver.”

Chamber’s upbringing has allowed him to keep a “normal” life under control. He did not inherit any seat. Her parents never milked the top podium step at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway or the steep hill of Monte Carlo that winds through the blue-blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Instead, Chambers fell in love with the game through the television screen, an affinity he shared with his British-born father.

It was Chambers – not his father, a financial advisor, or his mother, a teacher – who first expressed interest in karting at age 7. After hanging out at a local go-kart track in the suburbs of New York, where Chambers spent most of her childhood, she was hooked: “I just kept asking throughout the winter, ‘When can we go back?’ ” By eight, she was ready racing at the club track owned by Santino Ferrucci’s father, where Danica Patrick and Andrettis grew up racing.

“It feels good to come from a family that is not a driver,” Chambers says. Her parents, Matthew and Shannon, balanced full-time jobs with managing their daughter’s career until this season. The couple adopted Chambers from Guangdong, China, when she was 11 months old, before adopting her younger siblings. His brother and sister have divested their interests from the race track. In a family Christmas photo, Chambers sits between her siblings, both of whom are wearing plain clothes, while she is wearing a racing suit. “We are not a super-crazy, super-rich, or super-connected racing family. We are just a normal family. I think when you do well at something, when you win a race, or when you get a good result, things feel a little bit better, to be honest.

Chambers is an anomaly: an American female racing driver who does not come from a long line of drivers but has managed to enter the Formula 1 pipeline. When she traveled across America to compete, she was one of the few girls to drive consistently, and by third grade, she had perfected her elevator speech, and convinced her teammates that “Race Car Driver” was a real occupation for a woman.

“We used to go to the library and I would always pick out the racing books,” Chambers recalls. “People will always say, ‘What are you doing?’ I remember this one guy, and he said, ‘Why are you looking at go-karts? They’re just little cars.’ And I was like, ‘Because I race in these.’

As more women are entering racing, the “why” behind the F1 Academy is increasingly being questioned. Amid all the noise over what an all-female series should or should not be, Chambers, as one of 15 women participating in racing, has a pretty good idea. “I think a lot of people believe that the goal of the F1 Academy is to find the next Formula 1 driver,” she says. “The whole purpose of the F1 Academy is to get more girls involved at the grassroots level.”

During the 2025 F1 Academy season, the Red Bull Ford Academy program will support Chambers. He’s a perfect fit for the energy drink brand: serious but quick to laugh, his personality split on and off the track. “On the track, I am very determined. “I’ll get it passed,” Chambers admits without hesitation. “With that out of the way, I’ve calmed down a bit.”

Plus, he’s prepared for the inevitable question: What’s your favorite Red Bull flavor? “watermelon.”

She has a kind of maturity and confidence that is rare in a 20 year old girl. I believe it’s the kind of easy confidence that can only come from handling a car going 150 mph. She immediately reassures me that the campaign is more important than winning. In May, he finished seventh at the Miami International Autodrome, not expecting a podium. She finished third and remembers telling herself: “There was no way I could do that. There’s no way I’m going to come in all those positions like that.” In comparison, her Barcelona win was “boring”, as she ran 6.6 seconds ahead of the field. “My podium in Miami is equivalent to my win in Barcelona,” Chambers says proudly.

Both his win and the Miami podium will reach mainstream audiences next year, when Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company will release a “Drive to Survive”-style Netflix series based on the on and off track lives of the F1 Academy’s 15 drivers. The series will put several drivers firmly into the spotlight for the first time. Despite being photographed with Formula 1 drivers and driving under the 10 team emblems of the elite racing series, the group of 16 to 25-year-olds from the F1 Academy still go unnoticed on the road. Chambers knows her life could change, and change fast.

“Everyone says, ‘Oh, it would be great to be famous,’ but then you hear the other side of it, too,” she says. “To be honest, whatever happens, I am okay with it. My main focus will always be on whatever happens on the track. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to focus on this as my main focus.”

While the goal has always been Formula 1, Chambers is realistic. She has the same kind of go-with-the-flow attitude toward her career as she does when she speaks about the possibility of becoming famous overnight: casualness mixed with curiosity.

“I always said Formula 1 was where I wanted to be. As I got older and as I progressed in motorsport, I came to the conclusion that shooting for just one thing wasn’t the best idea. If you don’t get that super rare thing, you’re going to end up disappointed,” Chambers explains. “My goal has shifted to racing at the pinnacle level of motorsport, whatever that may be.”

The 24 Hours of Daytona, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Formula 1, IndyCar, Formula E – nothing is off the table for Chambers.

Right now, the F1 Academy is the best fit, and she has one goal in mind for the 2025 season: “I will win the F1 Academy Championship. This would be the ideal scenario.” The F1 Academy pays for the champion’s next year of racing, removing the biggest hurdle in the sport: out-of-pocket costs.

She imagines herself standing on the top podium again, her hunger whetted after winning in Spain, and she’s looking forward to her family – the first thing she sees when she stands above the race track. Searches for people in the crowd.

Chambers sometimes even dreams of the moments after the race.