Ricciardo. Piastri. Anagnostiadis? The Aussie teen on track to F1 glory

Mark Webber. Daniel Ricciardo. Oscar Piastri. This burgeoning list of homegrown F1 superstars has forced some teams on the Formula One grid to venture beyond traditional European grounds to find their next driver.

For 16-year-old Melburnian Aiva Anagnostiadis, working towards a seat in the notoriously exclusive F1 circuit has meant missing out on a typical teenage experience.

“It’s what I want to do so [I] commit to it. I probably missed out on going to a few parties [or] going out with friends on weeknights,” Anagnostiadis tells Drive.

“At the end of the day I love it [motorsport] and if that means not going to a birthday or something then [so be it]."

After a prolific karting career which included representing Australia in the FIA Motorsport Games and winning the ladies' karting championship at 14 years old – Aiva was noticed by Alpine F1 Team and was invited to join the squad through the Rac(H)er Programme alongside five other junior female drivers from different countries.

Alpine has a history of plucking up-and-coming Australian racing drivers to join its developmental program, with the likes of fellow Australian drivers Oscar Piastri and Jack Doohan previously honing their craft with Alpine before moving up to F2 and F1.  

When asked what draws her to the sport, unsurprisingly Anagnostiadis' response has the vigour of a racing driver determined to reach the upper echelons of the sport.

“Once I started getting up the front and winning and getting on the podium, you get addicted to that [feeling] and you want that feeling over and over again,” she tells Drive.

“You never stop until you actually get there.”

Aiva’s had motorsport in her DNA since birth – with her mother Barbara a former karting racer, and her father Adam, a mechanic who had a karting business – it was only a matter of time before Aiva, alongside her younger brother James, ventured into the sport.

While Aiva’s calm, composed, and poised demeanour mirrors that of a seasoned motorsport veteran, the Australian teen isn’t exempt from the eye-opening experience of joining a professional racing team that provides a pathway to her ultimate goal.

“At first I [thought] it’s not really real until we went into the factory and I was like ‘oh my god okay’ this is actually happening,” she tells Drive.

Besides the familiarity of racing on home soil across Australia, Aiva says there is a big learning curve when joining Alpine – highlighted by the vast difference in resources and understanding of what it takes to survive in an established European racing program.

“They [Alpine] are an F1 team so obviously having that is massive compared to back at home. They know a lot more because they’ve got [the] cars, the data and everything’s there for me to use.

"They're all really organised. The chassis's good, the engine's really good. So having a team [of that calibre] behind you helps quite a bit. It gives you the confidence to get the job done," she tells Drive.

“Back home I had my one team with the same people. Over here, my team manager’s different every weekend. Learning to listen to different people even when they’re reading data off the track, understanding the way they’re explaining it [is challenging],” she adds.

Once the novelty of transitioning from amateur karting to a professional racing team wore off, Anagnostiadis says the decision to move to Europe – where the competitive level is higher – added “good pressure that pushes you and makes you better”.   

Additionally, Aiva says that Australia was the proving ground to test her karting skills but the "opportunities at home are a lot slimmer than they are over here [Europe], there's a lot more people with teams and connections".

While Aiva is entering her last season in karting under Dan Holland Racing, Alpine is preparing the young driver for her first foray into a proper open-wheel race car.

“I think an F1 car is going to be a lot different physically. They’ve already got me in the training program and getting me a lot stronger,” she tells Drive.

Though a coveted F1 seat is the ultimate dream for Aiva, her eyes and mind are focused on what she can control in the intermediate future: "This year is obviously karting, then hopefully by the end of the year jump into [an] F4 car and start working towards that."