Red Bull Motorsports
F1
The Al Qubaisi sisters are just getting started
Red Bull Academy Programme drivers chat all things Miami Grand Prix, women in motorsports and making their way to the top.
Amna and Hamda Al Qubaisi are giggling, as they often are together, as they approach the track at Homestead Speedway in Miami. The Emirati sisters are known for teasing one another, but today’s banter has been prompted by the helicopter ride they took to get here from the Miami International Autodrome at Hard Rock stadium. “That was insane,” Hamda, the younger of the two, says of her second-ever trip in a chopper. In protective eldest daughter fashion, Amna lovingly rolls her eyes and disagrees: “No, that was scary.”
Hamda and Amna Al Qubaisi
© Daniel Zuliani
The sisters, respectively, are on hand on a Thursday afternoon in May, ahead of the second F1 Academy race of the year. Hungry for momentum, the Al Qubaisis are in the midst of their sophomore season with the all-women’s feeder series, which aims to propel women drivers into the highest rungs of the motorsport ladder. For the Red Bull Academy Programme working towards equality on track, the goal isn’t so much to get a singular woman into F1 now as it is to level the playing field across the board: to ensure girls and women who want to race have the opportunity to see people who look like them in Red Bull branded overalls or sliding behind the wheel of a Visa Cash App RB livery. This year, Amna and Hamda get to be those role models, rocking some of the same pristine race kits as gritty pros Max Verstappen, Sergio Pérez, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda — which makes it all the more surprising that the sisters’ racing dreams almost came to a screeching halt two years ago.
“I'd done so many different championships, and I did achieve so many results, and there was one point where I was like, ‘Okay, this is the win that’s gonna get me the sponsorship I need.’ But no: It was just dead,” Hamda said of her time before joining the F1 Academy. “So it's crazy how [F1 Academy] has completely changed my racing career in a really positive way. I've never had this much exposure.”
Hamda Al Qubaisi at the 2024 Goodwood Festival in Chichester, England
© Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
When it comes to a female driver trying to find sponsors, usually those companies wouldn't really look at us.
The 21-year-old isn’t exaggerating. Across a handful of series all over the world, she and Amna climbed historic podiums and consistently beat out mixed grids of male and female drivers. While driving in the Formula 4 U.A.E. Championship in 2019, Amna became the first Arab female ever to win in a single seater race. Two years later, Hamda became the first female driver to podium in the Italian F4 Championship, while taking home fourth in the F4 U.A.E. Championship that same year. Still, when it came to attracting the funding they needed to move up into F3, Amna says they continually found themselves running up against a closed door. “When it comes to a female driver trying to find sponsors, usually those companies wouldn't really look at us,” she admits. “They would look at the male drivers more.” But in partnering with the Red Bull Academy Programme, that script has flipped entirely.
Hamda Al Qubaisi, Emely De Heus, Amna Al Qubaisi
© Sam Todd / Red Bull Contentpool
New to the F1 Academy this season is the direct involvement of all of the F1 teams, which means Red Bull Racing and Visa Cash App RB each got to offer their branding, financial support, and training resources to an F1 Academy driver. Alongside Amna and Hamda, fellow MP Motorsport driver Emely De Heus also races under the Red Bull Ford Academy Programme. This new arrangement means the Al Qubaisi sisters and De Heus all get access to the Team’s UK training facilities and simulators, as well as receiving the performance assistance of the Team’s strength trainers and nutritionists. In Jeddah, F1 Academy’s first round of the season, the sisters were present in the pit box where they were able to listen in on Max Verstappen’s radio communications with his engineers — an experience Hamda says she’s never had before, and which taught her to make her feedback as specific as possible. The day before we caught up with Amna, she’d been stationed at Visa Cash App RB’s Miami livery reveal party — a psychedelic, technicolor car wash — right alongside F1 drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda.
Amna Al Qubaisi at Red Bull Driver Day Experience in Miami, FL
© Daniel Zuliani / Red Bull Content Pool
“What I've seen compared to other teams, the Red Bull Academy Programme is really, really putting us out there. Visa Cash App RB was one of the only teams that brought their F1 drivers to the F1 Academy grid to wish us good luck [in Jeddah],” Amna said. “That was a really heartfelt moment that made me feel like I was a part of their team. It's nice to see how much effort they’re putting into saying, ‘You're not just a driver. You're also one of us.’”
Hamda added, “It's been life changing. Honestly, it’s a dream come true. I never thought I would reach this point.”
Hamda Al Qubaisi prepares to drive at the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed
© Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
The sisters have another huge advantage on the F1 Academy grid: They’ve got fiercely loyal allies in one another. Despite stereotypes of catty sisterly competition, the Al Qubaisi’s function seamlessly as a team — bolstered by the fact that they’re now racing together under the Red Bull Academy Programme umbrellas and refuse to gatekeep information from each other. Amna praises Hamda’s physical strength and focus, while Hamda admires her sister’s fierce mindset, aggressive driving style, and blaise attitude towards her detractors (Together, they laugh, they’d probably make the perfect driver). “When it comes to racing, we basically turn our brains on, and we’re like, ‘Okay, there's no reason to fight on track. We’re just going to waste time, might as well let whoever has the better pace pass and try to help each other,’” Hamda said. “We did that last year, and it worked really well for the whole team, not just for me and her.” While in karting Hamda used to playfully push Amna offtrack, at a race like Miami, it’s a little more expensive to wreck an F4 car over a sibling squabble. But that doesn’t mean the Al Qubaisis have lost their competitive spirit: When I ask who’s been passing more lately, Amna grumbles and pokes at her sister with a side-eye, “I gave her two podiums.”
Red Bull Racing Academy Programme driver Hamda Al Qubaisi
© Red Bull Racing / Red Bull Content Pool
Competition aside, the Al Qubaisi sisters’ palpable love of this sport all but runs in their blood. Growing up in the United Arab Emirates, their father Khaled Abdulla Al Qubaisi was also a racing driver, who quickly became the first Emirati to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Amna, who was in gymnastics at the time, said she started asking her father if she could race at the age of nine. Five years later, she plopped herself in a kart and never looked back. For Hamda, who adores following in her sisters’ footsteps, it was only a matter of time before she caught the racing bug, too.
“I watched her on track for a year, and I felt a bit left out because her and my father would talk a lot about racing, using terms like oversteer, understeer, and I was like, ‘What is that? What are you guys saying?!’” Hamda laughed. “I wanted to get into the same field and environment, and I always look up to Amna with the things she does. So from there, it was just motorsports the whole time.”
Red Bull Academy Programme driver Amna Al Qubaisi
© Sam Todd / Red Bull Contentpool
When it comes to the future, both sisters are dead set on progressing within motorsport — relentless jet lag and all. Hamda has her sights set on F3, while Amna, although hoping to advance for as long as she can, has set her long-term sights on real estate investing, as well as selling and buying limited edition cars. For now, though, they’re taking things one day — and one race — at a time, and reminding each other to enjoy themselves along the way. Over the course of the Miami GP, Hamda will clinch fifth in a thrilling Race 1, and Amna will remain consistent in the middle of the pack across both outings. But as soon as they’ve stepped off the track in Miami, the sisters are already laser-focused on improvements they can make going into Round 4 in Zandvoort on August 23. They want to race leaner, cleaner, and faster as they continue the hunt for their first podium of the year. They’ve been on one hell of a ride, but if ask Amna and Hamda, that ride is only just beginning.
