Who is Alba Larsen? Meet the 16-year-old Danish driving prodigy

While most of her peers are balancing turning in homework with posting on TikTok, Alba Hurup Larsen is navigating hairpin turns at 200 kilometers per hour. At just 16 years old, the Danish rising star is turning heads on the global motorsport scene, not simply for her blistering pace on the track but for the ways in which she’s rewriting what it means to be a teenage girl in one of the world’s most testosterone-soaked arenas.

It’s easy to forget that Larsen first climbed into a go-kart just five years ago, during Denmark’s Covid pandemic lockdown. “I was really bored,” she says, with the sort of casual honesty only a teenager can muster. Most sports were on hiatus, however “because you wear a helmet, it was OK to go go-karting”, Larsen explains. What began as a way to escape the tedium of long afternoons indoors quickly revealed itself to be something far more serious. “I tried it once and instantly fell in love with it,” she says.

After that, Larsen was quite literally off to the races. Her parents bought her a go-kart and weekends transformed into family pit stops, with mum and dad acting as mechanics. She learned the art of racecraft with a mix of curiosity and a preternatural ease, taking on her competitive debut in 2021. By 2022, she was third in the prestigious Zealand Championship and notched top-four finishes in both the Danish and Nordic IAME Championships. In 2023, she dominated, taking the Zealand title and finishing 12th in the Danish Karting League’s X30 Junior standings.

That same year, Larsen was selected for the prestigious FIA Girls on Track Rising Stars programme, a global talent search backed by the FIA (Federation Internationale de l'Automobile) and Ferrari. She won, walking away with the distinction of fastest young female racer on the planet. “She was the fastest,” recalls her manager, Lars Hemming Jørgensen. “But they also test your cognitive ability, your mental strength, how you deal under stress, what shape you're in... and she won. In a world of 1.4 billion girls under 18, that's pretty good going.”

“We were at Ferrari in Italy,” says Larsen, still awestruck. “We got tested in racecraft, physical and mental strength, everything. I had only been in a Formula 4 car once before that.” She’s referring to the open-wheel racing car intended for junior drivers; a pit-stop on the way to getting behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car.

Winning the competition didn’t just unlock a new tier of opportunity, it became a turning point. “That was when I started taking it seriously,” says Larsen. “It went from a hobby to, ‘this could be my job’.” In 2024, she made her single-seater debut in the Indian F4 Championship, claiming Rookie of the Round and a P8 finish in only her second appearance.

Motorsport has never been a welcoming place for women. Despite its glamour and global appeal (not to mention the participation of luxury brands on the sponsorship side), racing remains one of the most unequal sports in the world. Fewer than two per cent of race drivers are female, and none have raced and scored points in Formula One since Maria Grazia "Lella" Lombardi took on the track in the 1970s. “There’s no reason half the grid shouldn’t be women,” says Jørgensen, bluntly. “It’s systemic bullshit. The car is the muscle. There’s no physical advantage to being a man.” Larsen agrees. “When I started racing, I didn’t see any girls on the track,” she says. “I didn’t have anyone to look up to. I want to be the role model I didn’t have.”

Despite a lack of women in the sport she has had one very recognisable mentor: fellow Dane and Formula One driver, Kevin Magnussen. “We're from the same town in Denmark,” she explains. The two hail from Roskilde, which really makes you want to send in some scientists to study the local drinking water. “I go to school with his little brother Luca Magnusson... we started driving together at the local track,” she says.

Despite the local connection, Magnusson first noticed her talent at a Danish championship event. “He’s given me the best advice,” Larsen says. “He wanted to give something back to the sport and help get a woman to Formula 1 because he has two little girls.” Inspired by his own daughters Laura and Agnes, Magnussen has helped Larsen transition from karting to formula cars. “He told me what the engineers need to know, how to communicate as a driver, and how different the F4 is from go-karts,” she says. “That helped so much.”

Meanwhile, her own initiative, the Alba Academy (soon to be rebranded as GIRL: Girls International Racing Lab), is a grassroots project she founded to give young girls a chance to experience motorsport in a supportive, all-female environment. “When it’s boys and girls together on the track, girls often feel less confident,” she explains. “When it’s just girls, something changes. It’s magical. We want to take 20,000 girls through the programme this year.”

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Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the revolution in women’s racing comes with a very chic sponsor. In 2025, Larsen took her place on the F1 Academy grid as the official driver for Tommy Hilfiger. She’ll be racing in the brand’s signature red, white, and blue livery. “We've already done a lot of things together that I'm very excited about,” she says. “It's such an iconic brand, and I love everything about the clothes.”

Like so many of us, Larsen admires British Formula 1 superstar Lewis Hamilton for his on-and-off-track style. “He expresses himself through fashion and I like to do the same,” she says. “When you have a helmet on, it's hard to show who you really are. Of course, you can show your skills on the track, but through fashion, I can really show the personal side of myself.” Her everyday style? “Very baggy. Streetwear. Lots of strong colours. I love red and blue, which luckily are Tommy Hilfiger colours too,” she says. Race weekends outside the suit mean “baggy jeans, a tank top, and a cool jacket”. She’s also had the influence of her new sponsor in her wardrobe: “I dress with my own style, but with Tommy's little twist on it as well,” she says. It’s a natural partnership for a young driver whose off-track looks are already being noticed.

Created in 2023, F1 Academy is the sport’s most ambitious attempt to change the face of racing. Spearheaded by managing director Susie Wolff, the programme is designed to help young women transition from karting into single-seaters. Racing is clearly a family affair; the former race driver is married to Drive to Survive ‘fan-favourite’ Toto Wolff, CEO of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team.

Much of the modern-day explosion in Formula 1's popularity can be traced back to Netflix’s game-changing docuseries Drive to Survive. Since its 2019 debut, the show has not only captivated millions of viewers but completely reshaped the sport’s fanbase, particularly in the United States, where F1 once struggled for mainstream traction. The series has built a new, younger audience that’s driving up race attendance, television ratings, and social media buzz.

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Now, the same storytelling power is being channelled into the female-only F1 Academy. A brand-new Netflix docuseries backed by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company is set to spotlight the next wave of female racers, with Larsen slated to be a central figure in season two. Witherspoon, who has committed to a majority-female production team, hopes to give the same compelling treatment to the stories of women breaking barriers in motorsport. And with Netflix cameras already trailing Larsen at events like her Las Vegas debut, it’s clear this story is only just beginning.

The F1 Academy now races on the same calendar as Formula 1, with seven rounds from Shanghai to Las Vegas. This is why I’m speaking to Larsen over a crackly Zoom call from her hotel room in Thailand before her next race. “It’s intense,” says Larsen, who travels with her mother to races, with her father and sister joining when they can. “We were just in Shanghai for testing, and now we’re in Thailand training. It’s a lot of travel.”

Despite the whirlwind, she comes back to Denmark as often as possible. Her biggest goal for 2025? “To learn as much as possible,” she says. “It’s my first full F4 season, and I’m up against the best women in the world. If I can finish in the top ten, maybe even top five by the end, that would be amazing.” In five years, she aims to be in Formula 2 and closing in on Formula 1.

A rarity in every sense, Larsen has learned everything in half the time of her competitors and male counterparts, most of whom start go-karting when they turn six or seven years old. She’s won an international competition with almost no car racing experience. She’s building her own academy at 16. And yet, she remains remarkably grounded. “Racing has shown me every side of myself, the good and the bad,” she says. “But it’s taught me that I can do a lot if I just push hard enough.”