The 2026 Canadian Grand Prix marked a special moment for the women drivers of F1 Academy. Disney launched its Minnie Collective platform at the start of race weekend — introduced by F1 Academy Managing Director Susie Wolff — who highlighted the collaboration’s core purpose: to celebrate a new generation of women who are natural leaders and unapologetically ambitious and confident. Of course, the partnership includes key Disney x Formula 1 Academy products — from the Minnie Mouse Pullover Hoodie ($150) to the Minnie Mouse Icon Pin ($30) — that the drivers sported proudly all weekend long to showcase the fact that women in motorsport are just getting started.

Since 2022, F1 Academy has grown tremendously, broadcast in 160 territories with a Netflix documentary to show for the fan hype. Formula 1’s 2025 Global Fan Survey showed that female fans now account for three in four new fans, with 42 percent of females from the 100,000 people surveyed confirming they already follow F1 Academy.

F1 Academy is collaborating with big-name brands in addition to Disney (many of which target women), including last year’s Hello Kitty collection and the announcement of the official LEGO Racing team on the grid in 2026. 75 percent of girls surveyed think racing sounds exciting, while 52 percent could see themselves as an F1 Academy or race car driver one day, according to research performed by LEGO. While a walk through the paddock will show you that men are still very much at the forefront of F1’s commercialization (they are the “celebrities” so many fans want to see), the women’s presence in Canada could be felt more than ever, and it made me proud to be a female F1 fan.

Here, five of the women racers — including Mercedes’s Doriane Pin, Ferrari’s Alba Larsen, Alpine’s Nina Gademan, Racing Bulls’s Rafaela Ferreira, and Williams’s Jade Jacquet — tell Popsugar what they see for the future of women in motorsport, why they’re proud to be role models for young girls, and how they define their signature style on and off the track. Watch me play Secret Teller with Susie Wolff and some more of the drivers below, then learn more about the women of Formula 1.