In McLaren's Formula 1 garage, three racing drivers share more than just a name—Ella Häkkinen, Ella Lloyd, and Ella Stevens are all breaking through the sport's traditional male dominance together, part of the team's Driver Development Programme that's nurturing the next generation of talent. For colleagues humming along to Rihanna's 2007 hit, it's become an inside joke, but for these three Ellas, it's a symbol of something far more significant: a changing landscape in one of motorsport's most exclusive worlds.
Lloyd and Stevens, ages 20 and 19 respectively, are competing this season in the F1 Academy, the sport's all-female category that launched in 2023. Häkkinen, the youngest at 15, joined the McLaren programme last year and is already feeling at home despite being a step behind her teammates in competition level. "It's nice to have girls that are also friends do similar championships as you," she says. The camaraderie is real, but so are the individual paths that brought each Ella to this moment.
For Häkkinen, racing flows through her veins—literally. Her father is Mika Häkkinen, the two-time F1 world champion who dominated for McLaren in 1998 and 1999. Yet she credits her grandmother with sparking the passion. "She brought us into an indoor kart arena and I just really loved the passion," Häkkinen recalls. Her world champion father now offers mentorship on the mental side of competition, though he admits he's "really emotional" about watching her race, so he doesn't always attend. Instead, the 15-year-old finds her own way to unwind—riding horses, something she competed in before motorsports took over her life.
Lloyd's journey to F1 Academy took a different shape. A former show jumper and competitive skier from Pontypridd, Wales, she came to racing later than most but made up for lost time by earning F1 Academy's 'Rookie of the Year' award last season. Her diverse athletic background proved invaluable. The discipline of reading a horse's movements translates directly to feeling how a car behaves beneath her. "You've got to feel what the horse is doing all the time," she explains. "So that transitions well because you're sitting in the car, and you've got to feel what the car is doing underneath you." Her understanding of ice grip from skiing helps her read racing track conditions with precision. Lloyd claimed her first F1 Academy victory in Saudi Arabia last year, and a Welsh dragon adorns her helmet as a proud nod to her roots—a symbol that resonates with her supportive home nation.
Stevens, the final Ella, started racing at just six years old and has achieved what few do: karting titles at a similar age to Sir Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time F1 champion. But she's honest about the leap she's facing. "Especially being in F1 Academy, it's on an F1 stage," she says. "So it's a lot bigger to what I'm used to." What keeps her motivated is seeing progress in real time. When last year's F1 Academy winner, Doriane Pin, drove Lewis Hamilton's 2021 Mercedes in April, Stevens watched with fresh eyes. "It was really cool to see a female drive an F1 car," she says. "It's just amazing to see that progress." For these three Ellas, that progress isn't just something to observe—it's something they're actively creating every time they climb into the cockpit.