The course of Aiva Anagnostiadis’ life practically changed overnight.
In just two short weeks, the Melbourne teenager made the transition from competitive karting to a Formula 1 racing team halfway across the world.
Anagnostiadis first developed an interest in motorsports when her mum, an avid karter herself before having kids, popped her in a racing kart at the age of six.
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As state, national and international-level opportunities began piling up, Anagnostiadis came on the radar of the Alpine F1 Team.
In 2022, she was invited to join the prestigious Alpine’s RaceHer Academy junior karting programme alongside five other promising female drivers from around the world.
Their approach came completely out of the blue for Anagnostiadis and her team.
“We were in Dubbo with a big race team there doing a five-day pre-season test. It was 6am and we were in our caravans because we all camp at the track,” Anagnostiadis tells Wide World of Sports.
“I hadn’t even woken up yet and my manager and driving coach walk in and my manager shows me his phone and is like, ‘Look, I got this email from Alpine’.
“I read it and I didn’t see my name or anything, and I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s cool who’s going to get that?’.
“Then he said, ‘You’ve got it’, and I was like, ‘What’. So he repeated himself, ‘You’ve got it’.
“It didn’t really set in until we were at Alpine’s factory two weeks later for the 2023 F1 car launch.”
With a history of recruiting up-and-coming Australian drivers for their junior ranks, Alpine had again looked beyond the traditional European circuits for their next champion.
“Everyone always said watch what you’re doing because there are always people around but I never thought that there actually was,” Anagnostiadis says.
For Anagnostiadis, karting is just a springboard to prepare herself for open-wheel racing.
After selling up everything and relocating the whole family to the UK at the start of the year, the youngster is committed to forging her path to F1.
This year, the 16-year-old is hoping to complete her last race season with her karting team Dan Holland Racing before seeking to join a Formula 4 championship — the first step in the global F1 pathway.
“I’d like to do the British F4 series, then there is the F1 Academy that has come into play as well,” Anagnostiadis says.
F1 Academy, the sport’s female-only open-wheel single-seater racing championship, has become a feeder series for the higher tiers of the path to F1.
“If I could get into a [F4] car next year, I could go straight into F1 Academy because they are the same and use the same stuff,” Anagnostiadis says.
”To compete in F4 at the same time as F1 Academy would give me an opportunity to race against both girls and boys and see where I’m at.
“They’ve made [F1 Academy] like a starting ground for female drivers to give them an opportunity to make the ranks through motorsport.
“So, if you win the championship, you get a paid-for drive the following year in the Formula Regional.”
Traditionally, most drivers reach Formula 3 through the Formula Regional European Championship which is a step between F3 and F4.
While Anagnostiadis has her career all mapped out, her odds of climbing to the pinnacle of motorsport are stacked against her because of the deep-rooted barriers that hold back women in the industry.
With only five female drivers in the sport’s recorded history, there has never been a stable or regularly successful female driver at the F1 level.
With being the first female F1 driver of the 21st century would come the pressure of setting the standard for every other aspiring female driver — a reality that Anagnostiadis is familiar with.
“The F1 Academy has opened a lot of doors [for female drivers],” she says.
“There’s now a clearer pathway and more funding going into females right now.
“Hopefully they get the right one [into F1], and hopefully it’s me.”
Anagnostiadis identifies funding disparities between genders as the greatest barrier to female drivers’ success.
Through her eyes, she sees sponsors approaching female drivers as a gamble — but things are changing.
“Getting a female at the front of the field is hard, you don’t see it all that often, but now that we have things like F1 Academy and there are more girls winning races, sponsors are seeing this and realising that girls can do it too,” she says.
As part of the RaceHer Academy, Anagnostiadis is coached through a tailor-made, female-focused training programme to drive performance, and in turn, equal opportunities in F1.
“In karting, I’m racing boys that are around 20 years old so it’s important to build up my strength to make it a more even field,” Anagnostiadis says.
“My training has also gone up because I’ve got to get stronger before I can hop into the car.”
In between training, racing and completing her high school studies, Anagnostiadis keeps busy refining her craft.
“All my weaknesses in a go-kart — we’re doing practice days two to three times a week to fix them in anticipation for me to get into a car,” Anagnostiadis says.
“So, cold tyre runs, working on my braking, race craft — getting all that fixed so I’m ready for everything.”
Heading into what she hopes will be her final season of karting, Anagnostiadis hopes to finish on a high but admits she is holding out for “the big stuff” — racing cars.
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