Photo: Red Bull

Every year, some of junior single-seaters’ top drivers are handed professional opportunities. Some lead to long-term careers in sportscars, while others try out the more cut-throat world of F1 and IndyCar

In addition to annually ranking the top 50 drivers in junior single-seater racing since 2011, Formula Scout also recognises the achievements of the very best of those who ‘graduate’ into the world of professional racing each year.

After making his Formula 1 debut in last year’s season finale, Jack Doohan began 2025 with a full-time seat at Alpine but he only lasted six race weekends before being demoted back to the reserve driver role he had spent the previous two years in.

His replacement was Franco Colapinto, who had starred in his surprise step up to F1 in 2024 when he joined Williams for the final third of the season. He scored five points in nine races, while in 2025 he went points-free and had several costly crashes. Alpine was uncompetitive at most events, and Colapinto was thoroughly outshone by team-mate Pierre Gasly. He initially raced with a five-round deal, then held the seat race-by-race before Alpine committed at the end of the European leg of the season to keeping Colapinto in the car for the rest of 2025. By November, the seat was then retained for 2026 too.

In IndyCar, Jacob Abel realised his dream of being on the grid by leaving his family’s Abel Motorsports team after eight years with them. He joined Dale Coyne Racing, whose place in the pecking order was up and down during the season, but the 2024 Indy Nxt runner-up failed to make a mark at the top level. He was in the top 20 in just one qualifying session and two races.

Seita Nonaka somehow pieced together a near-complete rookie campaign in Super Formula. He started off with Team Impul at Suzuka, then raced for KCMG at Twin Ring Motegi where he finished eighth in race two to claim his only points.

After missing the next round, he returned to the grid in TGM Grand Prix’s line-up for the remaining events and set the fastest lap in the season’s third race at Fuji Speedway. Despite handling his team switches well, Nonaka didn’t turn his four seasons of Super Formula Lights experience into big results like other SF rookies have been capable of and was 17th in the standings.

Photo: KCMG

The driver he replaced at TGM GP was fellow Toyota junior Hibiki Taira, who did four races with Impul in 2024 and scored two points as well as racing a lot in sportscars. His 2025 SF campaign began so weak he was demoted to a reserve driver role.

After being a reserve driver for an F1 and a Formula E team in 2024, Zane Maloney didn’t continue with either in 2025 to pursue a race seat in FE with Lola Yamaha Abt. It resulted in coming a points-free last in the championship.

Roy Nissany became the most experienced driver in the history of second-tier single-seater racing in 2023, then was out of action last year. He returned to racing in 2025 in the European Le Mans Series, and came 15th in his first campaign racing prototype sportscars. His team-mate for the first three races was Francesco Simonazzi, with the 2024 Euroformula runner-up also doing three races in International GT Open which put him 27th in the standings.

Eligible for this list until June, when he returned to junior single-seaters, was Joseph Loake. As can often be the case, his career lost momentum when he stepped up from Britain’s racing scene to the FIA Formula 3 Championship last year and scored eight points to sit 26th in the table. Prior to that he had won a touring car title, starred in British Formula 4 and come third in GB3, and this year his main programme was with Garage 59 in GT World Challenge Europe’s Enduro rounds.

At what can be considered the top level of GT racing (a status several championships can put a claim on), Loake was Monza Three Hours runner-up, went second fastest in his qualifying session at the Spa 24 Hours before his team-mate Marvin Kirchhofer put their McLaren 720S GT3 Evo on pole, then finished that race in sixth. That crew, completed by Kirchhofer’s fellow McLaren factory driver Benjamin Goethe, ended the season an impressive seventh in the Endurance Cup standings.

Clearly with an eye still on an open-wheel dream, despite earning McLaren’s backing in sportscars, Loake made a USF Pro 2000 cameo at Road America and finished fifth on debut in North American single-seaters’ third tier.

As none of the names in bold made the cut, here is Formula Scout’s Class of 2024… Key Wins (W), poles (P), fastest laps (FL)

10. Levente Revesz HUNGARY 20y/o
Int. GT Open champion (4 W, 1 P, 1 FL), 9th in 24H Series Middle East Trophy – GT3 class   2024: 5th in Euroformula (1 W, 2 FL)   2023: 9th in Euroformula (1 W), 25th in FRegional Europe & FRegional Middle East

Photo: Fotospeedy

Some drivers become far more competitive with a switch of disciplines, as proven by Revesz in a canny career move this year.

He was a backmarker throughout his single-seater career, scoring 15 points across 92 races in five championships over three years, until he stepped up to the third-tier Euroformula championship for the last three rounds of its 2023 season.

By then the championship utterly lacked depth, and was ruled by German outfit Motopark which was propping up the entry list but also dominating with ease. Since Revesz joined the grid with Motopark, and he was in an eight-car field, he was able to take a win and two other podiums.

That prompted him to stick about for 2024 with the team, and against a similarly uninspiring opposition he claimed one win and seven other podiums before dropping off the grid with two rounds to go. By then Motopark had also become a top team in the International GT Open championship, which like Euroformula is promoted by GT Sport.

Revesz moved into its GT squad for 2025, and he unlocked far more performance than ever before as he won four races in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo he co-drove and was crowned champion.

9. Syun Koide JAPAN 26y/o
11th in Super GT, 16th in Super Formula   2024: Super Formula Lights champion

Photo: Super Formula

Photo: Super Formula Lights

By Honda’s reckoning, Koide has not done enough to earn a second season in SF but his rookie campaign with B-MAX Racing still had highlights. And while his team is certainly a heavyweight in junior single-seaters, as proven by Koide’s own march to the 2024 SF Lights title with them, it isn’t at the top level where it only runs one car.

Koide started his SF career by qualifying seventh for his first race at Suzuka, a track he has never been strong at historically. That impressive result was thrown away at the start as he limped off the line and dropped to last. After the first safety car period he was gapped by the rest of the field, but in the race’s second half he rose to 14th place.

The next day he qualified 12th, and had a far better race. Two places were lost at the start, but he gained those back and two more with a lengthy first stint. He utilised his fresher tyres to then pass Kamui Kobayashi, before a penalty lifted him to eighth.

Two 14th places at Twin Ring Motegi followed, then Koide was off the pace and got a penalty at Autopolis. He bounced back by qualifying 11th for race one at Fuji Speedway, but another slow start set up an opening lap in which he gained and lost places. By lap four he had been shuffled down to 18th, and after pitting early he only made it back up to 15th.

A very similar thing occurred the next day, consigning Koide to 17th. Sportsland Sugo was very different, as Koide set the pace in free practice one. But in qualifying a totally avoidable kerb-riding moment caused damage that meant he stopped a few moments later and triggered red flags. From last place, he climbed up to 13th in the race.

Koide had top-10 potential on the return to Fuji but qualified 13th, and despite heavy rain meaning the race ran entirely behind the safety car he was able to fall to last on lap two. Race two, which Koide qualified ninth for, was cancelled due to fog.

That meant the final round at Suzuka became a triple-header, and opening lap action proved to be Koide’s biggest weakness again until the last race. A great launch lifted him from 12th to ninth, he made two further places during the lap then after his pitstop dropped him to 10th he made two overtakes on a safety car restart before scoring points in ninth.

8. Gabriel Bortoleto BRAZIL 21y/o
19th in F1   2024: F2 champion (2 W, 2 P, 2 FL)   2023: FIA F3 champion (2 W, 1 P, 3 FL)

Photo: Sauber Group

Bortoleto’s career accelerated on F1’s support bill, winning the FIA F3 and Formula 2 titles back-to-back and being picked up by Sauber to race in F1 this year.

While the memorable moments of his rookie campaign were mostly crashes, including a 57G shunt on home soil, he still shone on the most competitive stage of all and was the lead Sauber driver at the chequered flag in 10 grands prix.

Bortoleto had spent 2023 and ’24 as a McLaren junior, so was familiar with F1 simulators and facilities, but since it was a different team he debuted with there was plenty of learning to do surrounding its working methods.

It was clear that chief technical officer Mattia Binotto [pictured above] had a lot of faith in Bortoleto’s abilities and when Sauber was at its strongest he was consistently progressing to Q2 and even making it to Q3 three times. This included outqualifying Fernando Alonso, who helms the A14 Management firm which oversees Bortoleto’s career.

The unfamiliar tracks after F1’s European leg unsurprisingly led to a dip in form, but he still scored a point in Mexico City.

Bortoleto raced without the pressure of fighting for his future, since he was signed on a two-year deal, but staying out of trouble when fighting for positions is still an area needing improvement so not to add to his crash count.

7. Zak O’Sullivan ENGLAND 20y/o
15th in SF, 3rd in Super GT – GT300 class (1 W, 1 FL)   2024: 16th in F2 (2 W, 1 FL)   2023: 2nd in FIA F3 Championship (4 W, 1 P, 3 FL)

Photo: Super Formula

In addition to being Envision Racing’s simulator driver in FE, O’Sullivan joined Toyota’s ranks to race in SF this year.

Despite being a Williams junior and having been called up to drive in an F1 practice session while still in F3, a funding issue cut O’Sullivan’s rookie F2 season short in 2024. He had won the feature race in Monaco and a shortened Spa-Francorchamps sprint race, but was actually one of the slowest in the field on race pace and lacked consistency.

SF was a totally different challenge, including a language barrier, on tracks he was totally new to. But O’Sullivan adapted instantly by qualifying 10th on debut and finishing that race in eighth.

He failed to finish in race two at Suzuka, but at Motegi he rose from 14th to 12th in race one, then from 13th to 11th in race two, and at Autopolis he qualified eighth. He saved his car from spinning as it squirreled while he went up the gears at the race’s start, which briefly dropped him to 11th, and was up to fourth when he crashed out before making his required pitstop.

Fuji was a low point for pace, qualifying no higher than 19th and therefore not being in contention for points, but in race one he was faster than Kondo Racing team-mate Kenta Yamashita as he rose to 14th. His potential was shown far better at Sugo, where he qualified eighth then finished seventh in the wet.

He applied what he had learned on the return to Fuji, and utilised his wet-weather prowess, to net an 11th place finish.

In the Suzuka finale there was a huge crash in race one, he could do little from from the back of race two’s grid, and it was a similar story in race three. Meanwhile in Super GT, which marked his first foray into sportscars and in a car shared with an inexperienced team-mate, O’Sullivan took a win and a second place en route to third in the GT300 class standings.

For a total newcomer to Japanese racing, and in SF’s pitstop era, it was a year to be proud of.

6. Jamie Chadwick ENGLAND 27y/o
3rd in European Le Mans Series (3 W), DNF in Le Mans 24H   2024: 7th in Indy Nxt (1 W, 1 P)   2023: 12th in Indy Nxt

Photo: Javier Jimenez

Chadwick’s victory in Indy Nxt last year showed how much she had developed since her rookie season in 2023, but she changed trajectory for 2025 by joining IDEC Sport in the European Le Mans Series. She was partnered with Mathys Jaubert and Dani Juncadella, both established GT racers but rookies in the LMP2 prototype class they were entering.

The trio started fifth for their debut at Barcelona (which like all races was four hours long), and were down to 11th at one point but made their way to the front and finished second. They then won at Paul Ricard, despite ending a wet opening lap in 14th. There was plenty of early drama, and Chadwick rose to fifth before handing over as the track became more treacherous.

It was an up-and-down race at Imola, where the crew spent time in the lead but then quickly ended up a lap down, returned to the lead lap then fell several laps behind. The trio lost a lot of time in traffic, but Chadwick did best at not losing places.

At Spa-Francorchamps, she ran fifth until two pitstops during a virtual safety car period. Prolonged interruptions meant no opportunities to recover places, and after her stint ended the crew’s race got harder and they finished 18th.

On home soil at Silverstone an early pitstop put Chadwick in 15th, and she recovered to 11th before the driver changes began and more places were gained. Her team-mates took the car further up the order to a win that revitalised their title hopes. At the Algarve finale. Chadwick lost second place on lap one, cannily reclaimed it a few laps later while lapping traffic then was shuffled down to fifth. Not long before being swapped out, she took fourth in a dramatic moment she triggered. While a fourth podium was claimed, with their title rivals ahead it meant IDEC’s trio came third in the standings.

Chadwick also drove the car at the Le Mans 24 Hours, and ran sixth in class during her double stint. IDEC competed in collaboration with Genesis Magma Racing, which has signed Chadwick as reserve driver for its Hypercar squad next year.

5. Louis Foster ENGLAND 22y/o
23rd in IndyCar (1 P)   2024: Indy Nxt champion (8 W, 7 P, 7 FL)   2023: 4th in Indy Nxt (2 W, 4 P, 2 FL), 12th in FRegional Oceania (1 W, 4 FL)

Photo: Chris Jones

Photo: RLLR

IndyCar’s Rookie of the Year may have only come 23rd in the standings, as one of only three full-time drivers without a top-10 finish, but he also claimed a pole, led three races and impressed Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing enough to land a multi-year contract extension.

The championship rivals F1 for its strength in depth, physical intensity, variety of circuits and onus on experience, and Foster had two full-time team-mates who already had 328 starts between them so had plenty of knowledge to lean on.

He qualified 16th for his debut, but retired in a lap one collision, so round two at The Thermal Club marked his first exposure to tyre durability in race conditions. Foster started 10th, way ahead of his team-mates, and ran in eighth early on before he lost pace and drifted down the order with each stint until he was a lapped 24th. It was an important day of learning.

Qualifying was Foster’s strength everywhere but ovals, as he started in the top 10 for six races on road and street courses but on average qualified 19th for oval races.

On Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course he qualified third and finished 11th, his joint-best race result which was repeated at Road America where he took pole and was almost a second quicker than team-mate Graham Rahal in sixth. At Mid-Ohio he finished 14th from sixth on the grid, and also made the top 10 in Toronto and at Laguna Seca.

Foster’s tally of 14 finishes from 17 races was a better record than seven drivers in the field, and he was the leading RLLR driver across the line in four races including the second one around the Iowa Speedway oval.

The 2024 Indy Nxt champion’s best oval race in IndyCar was his first: the Indianapolis 500. He qualified 20th, ran as high as sixth, and finished on the lead lap in 12th.

4. Igor Fraga BRAZIL/JAPAN 27y/o
6th in SF (1 W, 2 FL), 18th in Super GT – GT300 class   2024: NC in Super GT – GT300 class   2023: 4th in SF Lights (1 W, 1 P, 1 FL), 23rd in Super GT – GT300 class

Photo: Super Formula

Formerly an esports star, a Formula Regional champion and a Red Bull junior, Fraga returned to real-world racing two years ago and came fourth in SF Lights with one win and 23rd in Super GT’s GT300 class. He continued there in 2024, while waiting on the sidelines for a chance to race at single-seaters’ top level in SF.

That happened in 2025 as Nakajima Racing signed him, and he seized the opportunity with both hands.

He qualified eighth for his debut, but had to start from the pits and then got caught in an incident that put him a lap down. While he started 14th for race two the next day, Fraga was in the top 10 by the second corner. Having ended lap one in eighth, he then joined several other drivers in taking the risk of an early pitstop on lap two. It paid off, and he charged to sixth before a penalty moved him up another spot.

At Motegi he was 0.135s away from claiming pole for race one, and finished only 3.772s behind the winner in third. It wasn’t so simple for race two, as he started sixth, struggled for pace early on and dropped to 15th before recovering to ninth place.

Fraga said the set-up was very sensitive, and he was driving the car in an agressive style with possibly more time in races spent side-by-side with rivals than any other driver in the field. When there were clashes, he came out on top.

A fall from sixth to 20th in the first two laps at Autopolis prompted Fraga to pit on lap three, and from there he climbed back up to eighth. The Fuji double-header was productive too. He qualified in the top eight both times, finished eighth in race one then ran seventh in race two before making a second pitstop put him a lap down. Sixth and eighth places at Sugo and Fuji followed, and he was 0.076s off pole for the race that got rescheduled to run at Suzuka.

Fraga qualified third, finished second and set the fastest lap in race one, led every lap of race two to deliver Nakajima’s first win since 2022, then rose from sixth to fourth (with fastest lap) in the finale.

3. Andrea Kimi Antonelli ITALY 19y/o
7th in F1 (1 P, 3 FL)   2024: 6th in F2 (2 W, 4 FL)   2023: FREC champion (5 W, 4 P, 5 FL), FRME champion (3 W, 3 P, 5 FL)

Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

The Mercedes-AMG F1 team’s long-time protege finally arrived at single-seaters’ top level this year, and immediately slotted into a seat with his backer as its seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton left for Ferrari.

Joining a race-winning team as a rookie rather than learning the challenges of F1 under a little less pressure with a team further down the grid meant Mercedes had to protect and support Antonelli rather than outsource that responsibility and it was slow to react at times to both external issues, such as social media abuse, and internal like drops in confidence.

In only his fifth year of single-seater racing, Antonelli became the highest-scoring F1 rookie of all time, the youngest driver to lead an F1 race and finished on the podium four times including sprint races.

However team-mate George Russell scored over twice as many points as him, an important metric for assessing any driver’s season, and only two drivers (one being Bortoleto) exceeded his tally of retiring from four grands prix.

Antonelli qualified 12 places lower than Russell on debut, but finished one place behind him in fourth and was only two places behind in qualifying next time out, which was for the Chinese Grand Prix’s sprint race. In his first eight races, the teenager only finished lower than seventh once but in the next nine rounds he had his four non-finishes and only scored twice. That was the European leg of the season, mostly on familiar tracks, but he couldn’t click with the soft (C6) tyre compound.

The exception was the Canadian Grand Prix, a track he had no reference for and therefore nothing to lose confidence against, and he qualified fourth on the C6 tyres then clinched his maiden podium in third place.

In the flyaway leg of the season, Antonelli’s confidence returned and he grabbed three more podiums. At Interlagos, he started and finished second in both the sprint race and grand prix, the latter after holding off Max Verstappen. The drive was touted as a sign of what’s to come from the young Italian.

2. Ollie Bearman ENGLAND 20y/o
13th in F1   2024: 18th in F1, 12th in F2 (3 W)   2023: 6th in F2 (4 W, 3 P, 2 FL)   2022: 3rd in FIA F3 Championship (1 W, 1 FL)

Photo: Haas F1

Photo: Haas F1

Outscoring his grand prix-winning team-mate Esteban Ocon in his rookie season was a stellar job by Bearman, who learned a lot from his three F1 races in 2024 (that catapulted him into his 2025 seat and a likely future berth at Ferrari).

The highlight was the Mexico City Grand Prix, where he took his and Haas’s (joint) best race result in F1 by finishing fourth.

That came in a run of four consecutive Q3 appearances, which translated into points finishes each time. Bearman also converted a strong start position into points at Suzuka, while at several events he showed an ability to charge up the order.

He rose from 17th to eighth in the Chinese GP, 20th to 10th at Bahrain (between Red Bull Racing’s Yuki Tsunoda and Antonelli), and from the pitlane to sixth at Zandvoort. That was down to a power unit change, which would’ve boosted his pace.

Like Antonelli, Bearman already has a colossal fanbase and he expertly handled the attention and pressure of the F1 paddock. In fact, he looked at ease most of the time.

At no point did Bearman cite his height, a constant disadvantage for reaching the car’s minimum weight, for lacking pace and his early run of points in Asia was a great bounceback from Haas’s unexpectedly tricky season opener.

1. Isack Hadjar FRANCE 24y/o
12th in F1    2024: 2nd in F2 (4 W, 1 P, 2 FL)   2023: 14th in F2 (1 FL), 7th in Macau GP

Photo: Red Bull

Photo: Red Bull

Unlike Antonelli and Bearman, there was an element of surprise surrounding Hadjar’s brilliance in his rookie F1 season. His superb sophomore F2 season in 2024 put him second in Formula Scout’s top 50 junior single-seater drivers of the year, and earned him an F1 seat at Racing Bulls over Red Bull’s Super Formula star Ayumu Iwasa.

As Formula Scout’s focus is on the series below F1 there is a limited understanding of just how ‘easy’ RB’s car was to drive compared to Red Bull Racing’s, and whether that contributed to the rotation of drivers between the two teams on the opposite side of the garage to Hadjar after just two rounds. But regardless of the team’s potential, Hadjar maximised his own.

He qualified 11th for his debut, while his first team-mate Tsunoda was fifth, but the next day he was holding back tears as he told media “it feels terrible” to crash out two corners into the formation lap and not even get to race.

Hadjar moved on from that embarassment quickly, qualifying seventh for the next two grands prix, the top Racing Bulls driver both times, and scored his first points. That trend continued, with 10 further points-scoring races, 17 more Q3 appearances, outqualifying his team-mate 22 times across the season and finishing ahead of them 18 times.

The highlights results-wise were Zandvoort, where Hadjar qualified fourth and claimed his team’s first podium since 2021 by finishing third, in Monaco where he started fifth and finished sixth, and Monza where he scored from 19th on the grid.

He moves to Red Bull for 2026, and F1’s technical overhaul should mean he avoids the struggles others had at the team.

NC. Taylor Barnard ENGLAND 21y/o
currently 13th in Formula E   2024-25: 4th in FE (2 P)   2024: 21st in F2 (1 W), 2nd in FRME (5 W, 4 P, 1 FL)   2023-24: 22nd in FE   2023: 10th in FIA F3 Championship (1 W), 2nd in FRME (2 W, 3 FL)

Photo: McLaren

There are a lot of reasons why Barnard deserves the number one spot on this list as the most exciting junior single-seater graduate of the last year, but arguably that graduation came in 2024.

The former protege of Nico Rosberg had a slow start to his single-seater career, and joining new team PHM Racing as a third-year Formula 4 driver in 2022 was a risk but it paid off superbly. He was runner-up to Antonelli in ADAC F4 and then FRegional Middle East at the start of 2023, before stepping up to the FIA F3 Championship with Jenzer Motorsport in the equivalent of a loan deal.

The end of that campaign featured starring drives that may have only left him 10th in the standings but put him firmly on the international map again. A McLaren test in FE set such an impression that he was then signed as reserve driver, while PHM’s pipeline also pushed him up to F2 for 2024 less than four weeks before the season began.

His first F2 points came when he won the Monaco sprint race, and he’d gained circuit experience a month prior by making his FE debut. Barnard was called up mid-event, and drove from 22nd to 14th on a track where overtaking is very difficult.

He raced for McLaren again in the Berlin double-header at the start of May, and scored in both races. In the second he charged from 18th to eighth, showing immense potential, and he qualified 14th for the first race.

By August, McLaren had decided to hand Barnard a full-time for the 2024-25 campaign. Once his future was determined, Barnard decided to end his F2 campaign four rounds early and his pre-season preparations for FE began.

The year ended with the season-opening Sao Paulo E-Prix, and despite qualifying 17th a starring drive meant Barnard broke the record for FE’s youngest ever podium finisher. The rest of the season occurred this year, and four further podiums and two poles put the 21-year-old a stellar fourth in the standings, outscoring his team-mate by over 80 points.

The post Formula Scout’s Class of 2024 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photos: Formula Motorsport Ltd

In the four months since AIX Investment Group acquired the Formula 2 and Formula 3 operations of PHM Racing, the team has already tasted victory in both categories. But its ambitions go much further.

As the rebranded AIX Racing squad’s CEO Morne Reinecke and sporting director Roland Rehfeld explain to Formula Scout, the team has been busy restructuring its engineering capabilities, embedding processes recruiting staff, “making sure we dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s,” in Reinecke’s words.

“The goal is obviously to be a top running team,” he explains. “We want to do this properly and, this being the feeder series from F3 to F2 to F1, if we can get this fully up and running the way we want it, at the top, then there’s no reason for us not to take the next step.”

By which Reinecke means that “effectively F1 is the goal, even if it’s by part ownership or part marketing strategy, but that’s a couple of years down the line.

“Obviously, stepping straight into F1 is not ideal, especially if you’re testing the waters to see from an investor perspective what the yield would be versus what you put in.”

The new owners saw their investment get off to a flying start in F2 with Joshua Duerksen’s podium at Imola, followed a week later by Taylor Barnard’s sprint race win in Monte Carlo, forcing Rehfeld to manage expectations a little: “I said ‘guys, it will not continue like this,’” he laughs. Duerksen went on to take a sprint race win himself, though, in Baku.

“We are in two of the most competitive championships in the world in formula racing, so [they needed to] be ready for that. Now they feel it and they have the right reaction. [AIX] gave us the time and are patient enough [but] sometimes you have to explain these things, but that’s absolutely a human factor, right? And it’s good that they’re taking care,” he says.

The departure of Taylor Barnard to McLaren’s Formula E team has left a large hole, not least emotionally as Barnard had been with the then PHM Racing from its inception in 2022, and still remains part of the now independent PHM Academy, which has stayed with PHM’s founder Paul Muller.

While the recruitment of backmarker Niels Koolen as Barnard’s replacement for Monza and Baku looked like a backwards step, Rehfeld emphasises that this is a temporary move. “We will have our 2025 driver in the car in Qatar,” he told Formula Scout at Monza, where Duerksen came within one off-track moment and an unluckily-timed pit stop of a potential victory.

Rehfeld sees it as “coming maybe from a reactive behaviour in this circus, now to be more proactive and that makes a difference. And that’s the same what we will do in F3.”

The F3 team had to wait until the Hungaroring in July for its breakthrough triumph, with Nikita Bedrin and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak bringing home a one-two in the sprint race, much to the team’s joy and relief.

“I was absolutely happy for all the guys. They were running through a very challenging season so far. Nikita, all drivers and all the team itself,” Rehfeld said, while Reinecke praised the “massive team effort.”

As Rehfeld explained: “When suddenly there’s the result and even a podium, it releases a little bit the pressure. It was first time that we were ahead of the action mentally and also process-wise. At least we can see that, even though it’s quite late in the season, with some hard work on the organising side and the communication side, it starts to work.”

Although the team was unable to build on the win despite a strong qualifying performance at Monza, “it encourages [us], also when we have a kind of reset on F3 next year with a new car,” Rehfeld believed.

“AIX now is very committed on that [which] gives us the ambition and the perspective to know where we can end up next year,” he adds.

The AIX Investment Group, previously little-known outside the Gulf, first got involved as sponsors of Brad Benavides in F2 with the team in 2023, then running under the tag of PHM by Charouz Racing System, adding its support to Charlie Wurz’s Formula Regional Europe campaign.

The relationship deepened, says Reinecke, when “this opportunity came up first to be a title sponsor in November [2023, with the team appearing as AIX PHM Racing] and then from a sponsorship we realised that this is something that we can actually contribute to in a much more active way, and so the negotiations started with PHM and then we took over full management of the team on 1 May [2024].”

“Bruno [Michel, the man behind both championships] and FML [Formula Motorsport Limited] have been massively helpful to us, especially in the beginning, telling us what we should be looking at and doing, so a big thank you to them as well for that,” he added.

The cars’ bronze-gold livery certainly attracts attention on track. “Fundamentally, AIX being an investment firm based in Dubai, we do things a little bit different to the normal paddock with livery and things like that,” he continued. “With all the coverage for the brand [it] makes sense for us.”

Though Reinecke makes no bones about admitting that “for us from an investment business side of things, it’s effectively a marketing exercise, giving us a global audience” that does not necessarily mean that AIX is looking to sell on to the next bidder with cash to spend.

Motor racing history has not been short of investment funds, which have appeared from nowhere, emblazoned their liveries over multiple cars before disappearing again equally suddenly and without trace, other than a mountain of unpaid bills.

But Reinecke emphasises that AIX sees its commitment being for an extended period. “We’re in this for the long haul,” he said, before adding with a smile, “or for as long as they’ll have us.

“You’ll see new guys coming into the paddock and then they leave. We made a strategic decision to invest and to see this through for the long term.”

For Rehfeld, it is important that AIX are hands-on investors, and critically “that the people are petrolheads because at the end you need the kind of extra motivation when you love the sport, and they do definitely. It’s a business [on] one side, but it’s still a sport,” he said.

Nevertheless, the new owners come “from a completely different world of living and economy,” accepted Rehfeld, requiring a process of education if both parties were to gel.

“The good thing is they’re listening carefully, so then you can learn and that’s quite good. For sure, in some ways it needs time to fit together and to build up a philosophy.”

In its Charouz days, the team was often running on a shoestring, surviving from week-to-week. The investment needed to move things forward was sizeable and is still ongoing.

“It’s a money sport, right?” Reinecke asked rhetorically. “That’s the way of life, but obviously we saw where it was lacking, there were some areas where additional investment was required. We addressed that with some structures, putting key people in place which made a massive difference.”

“You can’t win without a fully funded team, a properly-tooled team, a properly-skilled team,” Reinecke commented.

What have been the main investment needs for Rehfeld and the team?

“Basically, it’s about the tools, how to prep the drivers and giving the tools to the engineers firstly [to understand] the car themselves and then to explain it to the drivers,” he said.

On the technical side, Rehfeld has been able to invest in “better tooling, to go deeper in the R&D. And we are still on the path to do even more. Especially in F2, we have done quite an aggressive driver preparation with a very dedicated sim programme that came online for the first time in Imola, utilising all that that we have learned from the in-season testing in Barcelona.”

Rehfeld’s next priority was to bring in the right personnel to complement the team’s backbone of experienced managers “like F3 team manager Kenny Kirwan and Bob Vavrik in F2. Speaking about F2, there are quite familiar faces [also from] the Charouz time – the chief mechanic, engineers and so on.

“On the performance side and in the back office, we were able just now to make some moves. You’re looking for people, but you also need to pay them right and the budget should allow that right now.”

But the key to getting the right people is more than a salary, but “also to convince these people to take part in that journey and the challenge [of developing] from an underdog to an established team,” he noted.

The team is not bound to the PHM Academy in its driver selection. “For sure there’s a connection, but we have connections to other good feeder series teams as well,” he stressed. “What I like is that the market already approaches us right now. That’s quite a good feeling for everyone in the team. I tell the team that it’s their value which makes us interesting.”

Reinecke is already thinking ahead to 2025. “We’re really looking forward to next year with a new [F3] car and then with the engineering base where it is now, we’re really looking forward to some positive early results next year.”

As a former racer, driver coach and AMG Driving Academy instructor, Rehfeld has been around motor-racing long enough to understand that success does not come overnight. “It’s a long path because we know who we are competing against. They have quite a lot of years in advance, but that’s the challenge we take and when we are now able to compete that’s already one step.

“I have to say on the F2 side, we’re already ahead of our expectations. The speed is there and that encourages [us] also for F3.”

For him, success would be “if we can shake the establishment in F2 and F3 for the next couple of years and become a very solid and established competitor in the field, so that we become so – famous is the wrong word – popular that we are able just to develop future champions,” affirmed Rehfeld.

The post AIX sees early return on investment in F2 and F3, but “F1 is the goal” appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Paul Hurley

Formula E-bound Taylor Barnard’s rookie Formula 2 season with AIX Racing has come to an early end, and Niels Koolen has been signed as his short-term replacement.

Barnard was announced on Tuesday as stepping up to FE full-time with McLaren next year, having impressed in three races with them earlier this year.

While the entry list for this weekend’s F2 round at Monza was yet to be published, his name had alread been scrubbed from it and Koolen’s was shown in his place. However the announcement of Koolen’s arrival in F2 did not come until Thursday.

The 20-year-old Barnard departs F2 after 20 races with one win, claimed on the streets of Monaco, but only three other appearances in the points positions and he is currently 20th in the standings. He came 22nd in FE as a part-timer.

Barnard, who will remain part of the separate PHM Academy, expressed his “very mixed emotions” about his departure from the team. “Personally I would like to say a big thank you to team PHM/AIX for the last three years of my career. It has been a blast. I am sad to say goodbye to everyone, but looking forward to the future! Best of luck for the rest of the season!”

Koolen, who is 23, is signed only for two rounds. He is unlikely to fare better than Barnard as only once in his single-seater career has he finished a race in the top 10.

As a car racing rookie in 2022 he spent three weekends in Formula 4, with a best result of 17th, then last year did 35 races in Formula Regional-based championships and two 12th places were his highest placed finishes.

He leapt up to Indy Nxt for 2024, and came 10th in his third race in IndyCar’s primary feeder series. He did six more races, with a 12th being his next best result, before dropping off the grid. The Dutchman has also been racing prototype sportscars this year, scoring points in the European Le Mans Series’ LMP2 class and doing one race in Ultimate Cup Series’ LMP3 class.

Since last December, his career has been overseen by Fernando Alonso’s A14 Management company.

Koolen said: “I am very happy with the opportunity from AIX Racing to participate in F2 in Monza and Baku. A few years ago I had the dream to get into formula racing. Since then I have been training constantly to prepare myself for this step. I want to thank all people who supported me in this journey and look forward to my first F2 race.”

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Photo: McLaren

McLaren has announced Taylor Barnard as a full-time member of its Formula E line-up for 2025, after he impressed in several outings this season.

The 20-year-old Briton’s primary programme this year has been Formula 2, where he has claimed a win in Monaco as a rookie but scored scarcely since and is currently 20th in the standings.

Monaco was also where he made his FE debut, substituting for Sam Bird after he sustained a hand injury. The pair will be team-mates next year.

Barnard started last but rose up the order to finish 14th in his maiden FE race, then was utilised by McLaren for the Berlin E-Prix where he finished 10th in the first race and eighth in the second. He ended the season 22nd in the points table.

“I am delighted to be racing for the McLaren FE team,” said Barnard. “In season 10, I was the team’s reserve and development driver and during that time I learnt a lot, putting my new knowledge into practice in Monaco and Berlin.

“I am excited to race alongside Sam this season, and I am sure I will learn a lot from him. He is one of the most experienced drivers on the grid, and I hope that together we can score plenty of points and collect some trophies for the team. It’s an amazing opportunity to be able to continue the journey with the team as full-time FE driver, and I can’t wait to get started.”

McLaren’s FE team principal Ian James added: “Taylor has shown dedication, professionalism and talent both on the track and off it [since joining McLaren]. He relished a rare opportunity to demonstrate his ability at very short notice in Monaco and impressed the entire paddock. His grasp of FE was further underscored by strong, points-scoring races in Berlin.”

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Taylor Barnard claimed his and AIX Racing’s maiden Formula 2 victory in an incident-filled sprint race in Monaco after fending off Gabriel Bortoleto at the start.

The win also awards Barnard his first points in the series after he was disqualified from Imola’s sprint race, where he had finished seventh.

Invicta Racing’s Bortoleto and MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger completed the podium in second and third place respectively.

Bortoleto had a good getaway and pulled alongside reversed-grid polesitter Barnard ahead of turn one. However, the Briton had the inside line and kept the lead of the race into turn one. Behind them, MP’s Franco Colapinto overtook Trident’s Roman Stanek around the outside of the first corner, as the latter was slow at the apex.

Further down the order, ART Grand Prix’s Zak O’Sullivan gained three positions to make the top 10. AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen and Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti both made up five places, the most of anyone.

The safety car came out before the end of the opening lap. ART GP’s Victor Martins had had a slow start and ended up with his nose making contact with the rear of DAMS’ Jak Crawford and then Marti, sustaining damage and crashing at Sainte Devote.

The action resumed at the end of lap two of 30. Hauger brushed the outside wall at the exit of Anthony Nogues as the cars entered the main straight but continued without damage. Prema’s Ollie Bearman attempted to pass O’Sullivan as he went into his inside at the hairpin. However, the Williams junior had the inside line into Portier and held on to 10th place.

A second safety car was deployed on lap six as Marti crashed at the exit of the second swimming pool chicane. The Spaniard clipped the yellow kerb and lost control of his car, which was sent into the wall. The track went green again at the end of lap eight.

On lap 11, Duerksen ran into the rear of Trident’s Richard Verschoor at the exit of Mirabeau. The Dutch hit the wall as a consequence damaging his front wing, which resulted in him pitting for repairs. Duerksen was handed a 10-second time penalty for the incident.

Bearman hit the outside wall at Anthony Nogues on lap 14, which bent his rear-right suspension, affecting the steering. Nonetheless, the Ferrari junior continued, but then suffered an engine cut at Portier on lap 20 dropping from 11th to 14th position.

Four laps later, DAMS’ Juan Manuel Correa ran into the back of Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney at Rascasse, spinning him round. Maloney had already touched the rear of O’Sullivan as they entered the corner.

Maloney stalled and Invicta’s Kush Maini got stuck. He was able to reverse but then stalled at the apex, blocking the track and bringing out the red flag.

The race resumed with a rolling start and some drivers opted to fit the super-soft compound for the five laps remaining.

Barnard restarted well and soon built a lead of over two seconds to Bortoleto. Meanwhile, Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli — first on the softest tyre — dropped back from Hauger to set the fastest lap on free air and earn an extra point.

Race results (30 laps)

The post Taylor Barnard claims maiden F2 win in interrupted Monaco sprint race appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Taylor Barnard thought he had scored his first Formula 2 points when he met the chequered flag in seventh place in the Imola sprint race, but he has since been disqualified.

The rookie driver, racing for the recently rebranded AIX Racing team, was reported to stewards over “an alleged failure to engage the start set-up procedure” on the formation lap, and F2’s technical delegate found that to indeed be the case.

That violated Article 1.6.1 of the championship’s technical regulations and Article 10.15 of the system user manual for its new car, equating to a technical infringement and therefore disqualification.

Barnard had been last in the standings coming into the race, and he would have risen two spots had his race result stood. Instead he remains one of three drivers (with AIX team-mate Joshua Duerksen in that small list) yet to score this season.

Before learning of his disqualification, Barnard made the odd admission that he found his sprint race “a little bit disappointing” because of his “very, very good” launch off the line which – after some chaos further up the order – led to him gaining five places on lap one. He made up no further ground after that, spending almost the entire race in seventh.

Barnard reckoned AIX was “definitely making progress over the last couple of rounds” and since the previous races in Melbourne “could feel that it was a better performing car than what we had before”.

Based on the pace improvement, he added “there is no reason” why points would not be possible in Sunday’s feature race.

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Photo: Simon Galloway

McLaren has announced that Taylor Barnard will continue to substitute for the injured Sam Bird at next week’s Berlin E-Prix, having debuted in the Monaco E-Prix last weekend.

Barnard received a last-minute call-up in Monaco when Bird broke his hand in the event’s opening practice session. The team’s reserve driver was in the car for FP2, which he was slowest in, and after qualifying 22nd and last he made his way up to 14th place in his maiden race.

Bird had surgery on his hand, but the recovery timeline has denied him a speedy return to the cockpit. His hope is to be back racing at the Shanghai E-Prix on May 25/26, when Barnard would not be free to stand in for him since the event clashes with Formula 2’s Monaco round. The 19-year-old is currently in his rookie F2 season, with three 13th places his best results.

“Taylor did a stellar job in his last-minute call-up in Monaco, as did the team, who provided him with great support and guidance throughout. He will now be able to build on that experience, while Sam works on his recovery – with the team’s full support,” said McLaren’s FE team principal Ian James.

There will be another F2 driver on the FE grid in Berlin, as a calendar clash has left Envision Racing without its usual drivers and required it to sign two replacements. One of those is Paul Aron, who has taken three podiums from his first eight F2 starts and is currently second in the standings.

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Photo: McLaren

Formula 2 racer Taylor Barnard has received a last-minute call-up by McLaren to make his Formula E debut in today’s Monaco E-Prix.

The 19-year-old will be taking the place of Sam Bird, who broke his hand during a crash in the event’s opening practice session this morning.

McLaren first utilised Barnard in FE pre-season testing at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit last October, then this January signed him as its reserve and development driver in the championship. That led to him driving in the rookie-only practice session at the Misano E-Prix two weeks ago.

The assessment of Bird’s injury and the permission from the FIA to replace him has come quick enough for Barnard to be in the car for FP2, pending McLaren repair it in time, then qualifying takes place just an hour after that in a packed morning schedule. There will then be three hours for Barnard and the team to analyse data before he starts his maiden FE race.

Barnard started 2024 in Formula Regional Middle East, taking five wins and four poles as he became championship runner-up for the second year in a row with PHM Racing. He then stepped up to F2 with the team, and three 13th places have been the best results from his first six races. His average qualifying position has been 14th, although he was ninth fastest on debut.

This week it was also announced that W Series race-winner and F1 Academy champion Marta Garcia will drive in FE’s rookie test in Berlin next month for the Electric Racing Technologies team.

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Photo: McLaren

Several Formula E teams have selected junior single-seater stars to represent them in the rookie-only practice session at this week’s Misano E-Prix and next month’s rookie test in Berlin.

McLaren’s reserve driver Taylor Barnard has been called up to drive at Misano on April 12, which will be his second outing in a FE car. His first came with the team in pre-season testing last year, which prompted McLaren to sign him.

The 19-year-old came second in Formula Regional Middle East at the start of this year, and his main racing programme for 2024 is Formula 2. He currently sits a points-free 22nd in the standings three rounds into his rookie season.

“I am delighted that Taylor will be representing the McLaren FE team [in Misano],” said Ian James, McLaren’s FE team principal. “In his current role of reserve and development Driver, Taylor is an integral part of the team and has helped us improve our performance on track.

Barnard’s F2 rival Dennis Hauger will get his first taste of a FE car with Porsche in the Berlin test on May 13. The former Red Bull junior is in his third F2 season and has taken a win, a second, a third, a pole and a fastest lap from the first six races of the year. The 21-year-old is a title outsider, currently occupying a distant third place in the standings.

Abt Cupra meanwhile has put its faith in 19-year-old Formula 3 racer Tim Tramnitz for the rookie-only action in Misano and Berlin.

Fresh from finishing third in the FRegional European Championship last October, Tramnitz travelled to Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit to drive for Abt in FE pre-season testing. While he was not given a team role off the back of it, he impressed Abt enough to be called up again now.

“I am really looking forward to the Abt team and the FE test. The first few hours last year were already a lot of fun – and it’s always cool to sit in a race car,” said Tramnitz. “I especially like working with the engineers when we look at and analyse all the data, because it’s much more comprehensive than it is for me in F3. I can learn a lot and take a lot with me.”

Tramnitz is sixth in the FIA F3 Championship points table two rounds into his rookie season, with a podium coming in his second race.

As anticipated, Nissan will use its reserve driver Caio Collet at Misano. The 22-year-old Brazilian was 2020 Formula Renault Eurocup, a race-winner in the FIA F3 Championship in each of the last two years and is now racing in Indy Nxt. He finished seventh on his debut in St. Petersburg last month.

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Photo: WSK / Mario Perrucca

Oliver Rowland is not only tasting success as a driver in FE, but also as a team boss in karting and by supporting rising talents such as race-winning F3 rookie Arvid Lindblad. How does he have time for it all?

One of the most exciting rookies in the FIA Formula 3 Championship this year is Arvid Lindblad, and many may think his immediate winning form is all down to racing for top team Prema and being a Red Bull junior. But the person truly responsible for turning the 16-year-old Londoner into such a hyped prospect on the Formula 1 support bill is Oliver Rowland.

The 31-year-old Yorkshireman’s name should be familiar, since he has been racing in Formula E for the past six seasons and has been on the podium three times this year. Rowland was runner up in Formula Renault 2.0’s Eurocup and UK championship, and after winning the FR3.5 title in 2015 [pictured below] he did not step up to F1 and instead made a sideways move to GP2 as a Renault junior. He came ninth in his rookie season, and third the year after (when GP2 rebranded to F2) with two wins.

But there were still no F1 seats available, and Williams signed Rowland as a junior for 2018. He spent almost all year on the sidelines until Alex Albon’s own F1 call-up opened the door for Rowland to join Nissan e.dams in FE, where he has since taken a win, eight poles and nine podiums.

Before even becoming a professional racing driver, Rowland was already busy devoting time to supporting drivers with the same dream and running his own karting team: Oliver Rowland Motorsport. So why did he take that responsibility on?

“Well, when I was younger, when I was doing like FRenault and things like that, I had to make a living for myself,” he explains to Formula Scout.

“So I was doing a bit of coaching with some guys, whether it be karting or even some people in single-seaters a little bit the older I got. So I always kind of had a foot in that kind of market, let’s say.

Photo: Florent Gooden / DPPI

“Then how we actually created the karting team in the UK, was I’d been advising and helping Arvid quite a lot, just from like I went to maybe three, four races a year when he was eight. I used to advise his dad a little bit on what to do. And then at the end of 2016, I think it was, he came to me and said he wasn’t too happy with the situation with the team he was in and the support Arvid had. So he came along and basically asked for my advice on what he should do, and I gave him three options.

“One was to go with the best team at the time, which he wasn’t so keen on because it was quite busy and he wanted more focus on the driver rather than the equipment. That was Fusion Motorsport. The second option was to stay with the team that he was with because things can always get better. You can change a few things.

“And the third option that I gave him was like a rough, wild option was that I could create a team based around him. And it didn’t take him long to come back and say that that was exactly what he wanted to do.

“So we quickly went and bought a van, bought a little pop-up tent, and we went racing. It was me and mechanic, and Arvid. Took a couple of months to get up to speed and understand everything with the karts and engines and stuff. And then by the end of the season, we actually finished second in the British championship when he was nine, which was a fantastic result.

“The year after, we got a few more drivers and Arvid basically won everything. And I knew I wouldn’t have proposed that option to someone that [had less potential]. I knew he had a lot of talent. And it was also easy to, let say easy, obviously with his talent and you’re starting up something new like that, he was able to give us good results. And from then on, we kind of went from strength to strength. We won a world championship.

“I tend to look after the drivers that come in and do a good job, and keep an eye on them and try to move them in the right direction. We see they’re all broadly different. Some have got budgets, some haven’t, some struggle to make ends meet. And it’s something that I just enjoy doing on the side of my own racing.”

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Lindblad’s first two years with Rowland were in cadet karts, then the highlight of his rookie year in junior karting (which was mostly spent abroad and with Forza Racing) was being WSK Champions Cup runner-up. In 2020 he was WSK Super Master Series champion, Champions of the Future champion and CIK-FIA European championship runner-up, and the step up to OK karts for 2021 brought even more success as he was WSK Euro Series champion, winner of the WSK Final Cup, CotF runner-up, third in the CIK-FIA World and European championships, the WSK SMS and Champions Cup.

“I first got involved with him when he was seven. I just used to go to the odd day and do a bit of coaching,” recalls Rowland.

“Brake a bit later, turn here, try and get him to understand the basics. I would say we probably did six to seven days when he was seven, probably the same when he was eight. And then we started full-time. I was doing F2 the year that we started the team, so it was pretty busy, and every other weekend that I wasn’t racing I was with them, with him, trying to do a good job.

“I struggled [to find time], to be honest. I probably compromised myself a bit when I was in F2. But it was something that I always wanted to do in the future after I stopped racing. But given the opportunity with Arvid, it seemed like the right time. You know when things add up. Because it’s hard enough to start a team when you don’t have the drivers already. But when you have one that clearly has a lot of talent and ability, it made a lot of sense to at least try. So we went with that. I didn’t have much time. I was very busy, pretty stressed, but it was good fun.”

Now Rowland is not with Lindblad “as often as I’d like” due to how busy both of their schedules are. Linblad made the step up to single-seaters with three Italian F4 rounds in 2022, then raced full-time in three F4 series in 2023. He had a return of 10 wins, two of which came in Macau, and Rowland said he did “a mega job” of what he had “to deal with in terms of pressure, learning, development” as a 15-year-old car racing rookie.

“The plan was to come to more at the end of [the 2023] season, once FE stopped. But I stopped early in FE, so I went to Monza, I’ve been to [Paul Ricard], I’ve been to quite a few tests. End of [2022] I came to most of the races, when he was getting up to speed.

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

“I like to come as much as possible, but it’s juggling my racing, the karting team in the UK, coming here, other things that I’m doing in my life. I have a family at home. So it’s just about juggling all these things and trying to make them work.”

The “very mature” Lindblad began this year with three Formula Regional Middle East outings. It took just two races to become a winner in the category, and he went one better in F3 last month as he won on debut. A clearly delighted Rowland was in Bahrain to share in his protege’s joy, accepting Formula Scout’s praise for a job well done by both driver and mentor.

“I think he expects it of himself [delivering results at a top team], which is a good thing. He’s always seeking to be better, which is what we wanted from the beginning, I guess, when you try to create something like that. It’s a really good attitude, and I’m sure he can do great things.”

Since Lindblad is now at a team renowned for developing drivers, and has been a Red Bull junior since 2022, what form does Rowland’s support take when he’s trackside now?

“A bit of everything. I obviously know him pretty well. I kind of created it a little bit from when he was seven. I know a little bit how he works. I think Red Bull do a great job on the junior team side and my aim is to try and make sure that I can pass on my experience from my time going through the junior ranks. I made mistakes, maybe didn’t put myself in the best position sometimes. I learned a lot in my early years, and it’s just mainly to try and share that experience with him. Give him my experience, make sure he’s good in a mental way, and, basically just share my experience. The team do a great job, Red Bull do a great job, I’m there to kind of just oversee and see if there’s any way I can help.”

So who else has been under Rowland’s wing – either through direct coaching or his karting team?

In 2023 there were “eight drivers in my karting team” in the UK, and “then on the other side, I would say there’s probably three, four that I kind of help and oversee and advise a little bit”.

Photo: F4 UAE

The most prominent of those is Lindblad, but even higher up the single-seater ladder is F2 rookie Taylor Barnard who is a past protege of Rowland and rated “incredibly highly” by him.

“I helped him in his karting days. Helped him make the step to Formula 4. Then there’s Arvid, Harley Keeble, who’s now racing in America in karting, Nathan Tye, who was with the karting team in the UK and then went to race now in Europe [and will spend 2024 with Campos Racing in F4], and a kid called Henry Domain, who’s made the step from my team to Europe [in junior karting].”

PHM Racing is now heavily involved in Barnard’s career, having run him in F4 and Formula Regional then backing his FIA F3 season with Jenzer Motorsport before bringing him back into its own driver line-up this year by moving him up to F2.

“It’s a time thing. Trying to juggle all these things,” Rowland says of not having Barnard under his wing anymore. “But I’m just happy that he has the opportunity. When he was leaving Cadet, which is [aged] 12, there wasn’t much on the horizon in terms of opportunity. I managed to speak to Dino Chiesa at Kart Republic. He helped a lot with Taylor and was able to give him the platform to perform on the European stage.

“Then it’s kind of like when you’re in a situation where maybe you don’t always have the resources and the budget, you have to try to make ends meet and choose your opportunities wisely and be in the right place. So [I am] not as involved now, obviously still follow what he does and proud of what he’s able to achieve. And hopefully he can keep going.”

Barnard was actually originally a rival of ORM and its driver Lindblad.

“He didn’t race with my karting team. He won when Arvid was second, and I thought he did that much of a good job, I knew he was struggling to find something for the year after, I thought it would be a shame to let someone with this amount of talent and just fade. So he was really the first one that I kind of helped give a leg up into something else.

Photo: ORM

“But it’s almost an impossible job. Especially as I’m not really in a position to start paying for people myself, and it’s just about trying to find opportunities. And I think we did a good job at that.”

When 2016 F1 world champion Nico Rosberg created his own young driver academy in 2018, Barnard was signed up due to being in Kart Republic’s line-up. And he would not have been in such an enviable seat if not for the work of Rowland, particularly as Barnard “didn’t really always bring the money, let’s say” that is usually needed to join the top teams.

Not wanting to see talent go to waste is one of the motivating factors for Rowland to support young drivers, but what was and is the ambition with running his own racing team?

“Well, I do it for fun. It’s mainly a hobby, I would say. I enjoy winning, whatever I do. Whether it’s helping pass on my experience to them. Who knows [what ORM does next]. Right now, I’m not in a rush to expand it into anything else. I’m quite content with where it’s at at the moment, and who knows in a few years, maybe we can step up to the bigger categories and stuff like that. But that’s quite far from the radar at the moment.”

Rowland says the winning feeling as a team boss or coach is very “similar” to what he can feel as a driver as he enjoyed supporting his proteges.

“You can just get the buzz every week, right? And especially when you get to the level I’m at, you don’t win that often anymore. So it just gives you that opportunity. Even when I’m racing, I’m following them and seeing that they’re able to do well, there’s a sense of accomplishment.

“And also the people that we employ as a team, the mechanics and stuff like that, having that relationship, building that business and stuff like that is something that I’m kind of just experiencing and trying to enjoy.

Photo: Kartpix

He adds: “I think there needs to be a bit more support out there for the young guys. Even coming from karting. The costs of these paddocks now are becoming more and more and more, and the support is almost less and less and less. I do my bit, I try my best, it’s something that I’m quite passionate about. And I think things are starting to unfold in terms of FIA and F1 becoming probably more profitable and things like that.

“I would say that they’re starting to do things that are making change. But there’s so many kids that at grassroots, like the real grassroots, which is what my team does, that get lost – and it’s a big shame – because of budget. Even to do a season of karting now for the average person is impossible. So you already lose 50% of the talent from [age] eight to 12.”

To summarise: “I always say to the kids that come in to my team, if you do something special, you perform well, then I’ll do whatever I can to give you that next leg up the ladder.”

Interview by Roger Gascoigne

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