Nina Gademan: The Dutch Driver Who Used TikTok to Finance Her Return to Motorsport
If someone had told Nina Gademan in 2020, when she was 16 and had just left motorsport because her family could not fund her career, that five years later she would win an F1 Academy race at her home...
If someone had told Nina Gademan in 2020, when she was 16 and had just left motorsport because her family could not fund her career, that five years later she would win an F1 Academy race at her home circuit of Zandvoort in front of thousands of Dutch fans wearing an Alpine suit, she probably would not have believed it. And yet that is exactly what happened. The story of Nina Gademan is the most improbable in the female paddock in recent years, and at the same time the most human.
Nina Gademan was born on August 30 2003 in Wijster, a small village in the province of Drenthe in the northeastern Netherlands. If Russell’s King’s Lynn is relatively unknown for producing Formula 1 drivers, Wijster is a village of fewer than a thousand inhabitants with no karting circuit, no driving academy, no motorsport infrastructure. Her parents did karting as a hobby, purely for fun, and Nina was taken to circuits from the time she was a baby. She literally grew up in paddocks, not as a driver but as a spectator watching her parents compete.
At five years old she drove her first kart. And while the spark was always there, the economic reality of an ordinary family in a small village meant the path was anything but straightforward.
2018-2020: The Girls On Track selection and first steps
In 2018 at 14, Gademan was selected as a finalist for the FIA Girls On Track Le Mans Shootout, the programme that identifies promising female talents. She did not win that edition but the process exposed her to the level of female competition and the FIA’s development infrastructure. A year later in 2019 she won the gold medal in the Karting Slalom Cup at the FIA Motorsport Games, representing the Netherlands alongside Bastiaan van Loenen. It was her first international title.
But then came the interruption. The family faced financial difficulties that made it impossible to continue funding Nina’s career. For approximately a year and a half, between 2020 and mid-2022, she stopped competing. She was 17 years old and believed her motorsport career had ended.
2021-2022: Social media, viral videos and the return
What happened during those 18 months of pause is what makes Gademan’s story different from any other in the paddock. Without money to race, without a team to support her, Nina started creating content on social media about sim racing. The videos she made about virtual racing went viral. The audience grew. And with the audience came sponsors, brands interested in associating themselves with a young, passionate content creator with a genuine story. Gademan was honest about the process: I started making sim racing videos that went pretty viral, and that led to me meeting my manager and a range of sponsors able to fund my return to motorsport.
In 2023 she returned to karting, consolidating her comeback and winning the FIA Motorsport Games Karting Cup championship that year. The step to single-seaters came in 2024.
2024: British F4 and the historic F1 Academy debut
In 2024 Gademan made her single-seater debut in the British Formula 4 Championship with Fortec Motorsports. It was a season of honest learning: the field quality in British F4 is recognisably high, and Gademan, who had come late to karting and later still to single-seaters, had to assimilate an enormous amount of information in a short time. She finished eighteenth with a best result of twelfth on three occasions.
But what changed her career came in August 2024, when she was selected as wildcard for the fourth round of the F1 Academy season at her home circuit Zandvoort, during the Formula 1 Dutch Grand Prix weekend. What happened that weekend exceeded any expectation: she qualified sixth in both qualifying sessions. In race one she finished fourth. In race two she was initially tenth though a penalty was applied. Most importantly: she was the first ever wildcard driver in F1 Academy history to score points. Alpine took note.
2025: F1 Academy with Alpine and Prema Racing — the season of victory
For 2025 Alpine brought her into their junior programme and placed her with Prema Racing, the defending F1 Academy constructors’ champions. It was the biggest step of her career, the maximum institutional validation to that point. The season started with a setback: at the Shanghai round Gademan led for almost the entire first race before a mechanical problem on the penultimate lap. Then came a back injury, diagnosed as scoliosis of the spine with rotation placing pressure on the muscles on the left side. For the first half of the season she competed with pain.
And then came Zandvoort. Her home circuit again, the Dutch Grand Prix paddock again, Dutch fans again. But in 2025 the script was different. Gademan was declared unfit to drive by the chief medical officer that very morning. Hours later, after passing additional medical checks, she took pole for the reverse-grid race and won impeccably. The radio reaction was one of the most emotional moments of the F1 Academy season: oh my God guys, how did we go from being declared unfit to this? We did such a big thing. Thank you so much!
She finished sixth in the championship with 74 points, four podiums and that historic Zandvoort victory.
2026: MP Motorsport and the title challenge
For 2026 Gademan moves to MP Motorsport while maintaining Alpine backing. The opening Shanghai round was perfect: she won race one in a lights-to-flag performance, leading every lap from reverse-grid pole. She left Shanghai with 22 points and third in the championship standings after round one.
The 2026 title fight already has three clear contenders. Gademan is one of them.
Key quotes and curiosities
Gademan on radio after winning at Zandvoort 2025: oh my God guys, how did we go from being declared unfit to this? We did such a big thing. Thank you so much!
Gademan on using social media to relaunch her career: I started making sim racing videos that went pretty viral, and that led to me meeting my manager and a range of sponsors who funded my return.
Gademan on Max Verstappen: he has been good for the Netherlands because racing in the Netherlands was not very popular. Then Max came around and everyone knows something about racing now. I like Max because of his personality. I think we are a bit the same in mindset.
Among the curiosities: Gademan’s original surname is Pothof, but she competes professionally as Nina Gademan. Wijster, her home village, has fewer than a thousand inhabitants, making her story of progression especially remarkable in a category where most drivers come from families with substantial motorsport budgets. And her scoliosis injury caused her pain for much of the 2025 season, competing with active treatments and therapies thanks to Alpine’s support, in a demonstration of resilience that is central to her personal story.
Sources: Wikipedia Nina Gademan English, F1 Academy official f1academy.com, MP Motorsport official mpmotorsport.com, Goodwood Road and Racing, Grokipedia, F1Race.com, Alpine official LinkedIn
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