Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team has announced two new junior drivers, and the signing of Theo Pourchaire.

F1 work will be dovetailed by Pourchaire with racing for Peugeot in the World Endurance Championship’s top Hypercar class.

Since winning the 2023 Formula 2 title aged 20 and as a protege of Sauber, Pourchaire has raced at single-seaters’ top level but has been unable to do so full-time in any of those paddocks. He started off by graduating to Super Formula in early 2024, but gave up his seat at Team Impul after just one race to pursue IndyCar opportunities with McLaren.

Pourchaire had been called up for two races there as a stand-in for an injured driver. Having impressed the team, Pourchaire was offered a full-time seat (excluding the Indianapolis 500) and he dropped his SF seat to accept it. But the arrangement only lasted 40 days, as McLaren replaced him with paying fellow rookie Nolan Siegel who signed on a multi-year deal.

Having relocated to the USA, Pourchaire ended up only doing six IndyCar races with McLaren. Through 2024 he was also reserve driver for the Alfa Romeo Racing F1 team operated by Sauber. Despite ending his Swiss residency, which had provided proximity to Sauber’s headquarters, Pourchaire was able to continue his duties at several races (but with no free practice outings) until the end of 2024 when he left to join Peugeot as its test and development driver.

His 2025 contract also meant serving as Peugeot’s reserve driver when required (for example if the regular reserve driver had been called up to race), leading to him making his WEC debut in the season-ending Eight Hours of Bahrain. He finished 10th, and earned a full-time race seat for 2026. Pourchaire has also contested two Formula E practice sessions.

Frederik Vesti, the driver that Pourchaire beat to the F2 crown, has been promoted by Mercedes from the reverse driver role to being the F1 team’s ‘third driver’ this year, while junior team graduate Doriane Pin and new signings Joshua Duerksen and Pourchaire will share the simulator (in Britain) and trackside responsibilities of development drivers.

Mercedes has also announced that its junior Kenzo Craigie will race in E4 and Italian Formula 4 this year, after recently coming third in UAE4 as a single-seater rookie, while former rival James Anagnostiadis remains in senior and shifter karting.

The four drivers departing the junior team’s ranks were revealed in January, and after some overalls-fuelled speculation it has been confirmed that 11-year-old karters Niccolo Perico and Devin Titz join for 2026.

Perico currently leads the WSK Super Master Series in the OK-N Junior class after winning the first three rounds, and in mini karting last year the Italian won the Champions of the Future Academy Program, WSK Final Cup and WSK SMS titles.

Titz, from Germany, is still in mini karting. He sits sixth in WSK SMS, and was fourth in the 2024 German championship.

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Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

Mercedes-AMG has announced the departure of one driver from its Junior Team’s ranks, and the arrival of another, with both entering roles in its Formula 1 team.

Doriane Pin, reigning champion of the all-female F1 Academy series for Formula 4 cars who pursued a career in single-seaters with Mercedes’ backing in 2024 after success in GT sportscars and being 2023 F4 South East Asia runner-up, will graduate from the Junior Team.

She becomes the sixth alumni of the programme by Mercedes’ own records. Four made it to F1, including the team’s current line-up of George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli, while Frederik Vesti graduated after being 2023 Formula 2 runner-up. He has spent the last two years as the team’s reserve driver, and now “steps up to become the team’s third driver”.

Pin’s graduation comes after being 2024 F1 Academy runner-up, 2025 champion, and coming 10th in UAE4 two years ago with one victory. However she failed to score across 23 races in the Formula Regional European Championship, and non-scored in her six FRegional Middle East starts too.

The 22-year-old Frenchwoman’s race programme for 2026 is yet to be revealed, but she will be busy working alongside Vesti as a member of the Mercedes-AMG F1 team itself. She becomes a development driver with simulator and trackside responsibilities, which includes supporting the driver racing the Mercedes-branded car in F1 Academy this year.

Joining the Mercedes-AMG F1 Junior Team as of today is 22-year-old F2 star Joshua Duerksen. It will mark the first time in the Paraguayan’s career he has had F1 backing, and he too will have simulator duties in addition to being called upon to drive in Mercedes’ testing of previous cars (TPC) programme for the year ahead. Therefore alongside his Junior Team membership he will, like Pin, be a development driver for the F1 operation itself.

Duerksen has raced for AIX Racing in F2 the last two seasons, coming 10th in the standings as a rookie and improving to ninth in 2025. He has won four races, claimed eight other podiums but has been mired in the midfield with his qualifying form. For 2026 he will be in the line-up of Invicta Racing, which won both titles last year.

On his way up to F2, Duerksen was UAE4 runner-up, sixth in ADAC and Italian F4, 14th in FREC and 16th in FRME.

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Photo: Red Bull

The Mercedes-AMG and Red Bull Racing Formula 1 teams have released several of the young talents in their driver development programmes.

At Mercedes there are four departees: Yuanpu Cui, Julia Montlaur, Alex Powell and Noah Stromsted.

Powell joined in 2019, Cui had been a member since 2021 (with both signed while in karting), while Montlaur and Stromsted only spent one year with Mercedes’ backing.

Switching from the dominant Prema team to R-ace GP in Formula 4 last year sapped Powell’s career momentum. Although he started his third year in the category by being F4 Middle East runner-up, winning five races, he had a harder time in Europe. The Jamaican was fifth in E4 with one victory, and ninth in Italian F4 with two wins.

Cui spent one year in F4 before stepping up to Formula Regional, but had a chopped up 2025. He was points-free as a part-timer in FRegional Middle East, also failed to score from two rounds in the European championship and raced for two teams in GB3 where he did five of the eight rounds and two sixth places were his best results en route to 18th in the standings.

Stromsted’s run to sixth in the 2024 FREC season earned him a spot in the Mercedes-AMG F1 Junior Team, and with its backing he came sixth in the FIA Formula 3 Championship as a rookie with Trident. He took a sprint race win and two feature race podiums, and will remain with Trident for 2026.

The 12-year-old Montlaur hails from France, where she had raced in mini karting with little success before being signed by Mercedes. Last year she came 13th in the Champions of the Future Academy Program on OK-N Junior karts, and 21st in the French championship’s junior class.

At the Red Bull Junior Team, there is an exodus of six drivers including Formula E-bound Pepe Marti. Still in junior single-seaters, but no longer with Red Bull, are Jules Caranta, Christopher Feghali, Oliver Goethe, Niklas Schaufler and Tim Tramnitz.

Goethe and Tramnitz both spent two years as RBJT members, and came seventh and ninth respectively in the 2024 FIA F3 season. Tramnitz remained in the championship for 2025, improving to fourth in the points with one win, while Goethe stepped up to Formula 2 and came 15th. He had four top-five finishes but no podiums.

Caranta, Feghali and Schaufler were all 2025 signings. After coming third in French F4 as a single-seater rookie the preceding year, Caranta stepped up to Eurocup-3 with Red Bull’s backing and was seventh in the winter series then sixth in the main championship. Across the two, he netted five podium finishes.

Feghali and Schaufler went up against each other in Spanish F4 last year. It was Feghali who made the podium in both the main and winter championships, but Schaufler who scored more in both, coming seventh in the shorter campaign and 10th in the main one.

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Photo: Champions of the Future

RGMMC, organiser of the Champions of the Future karting series, has launched its own Formula 4 development programme.

The ‘CotF Racing Academy’ will be a year-long test programme for eight drivers who are in their final year of racing karts since they plan to switch to single-seater racing.

Augusto Farfus, the 2003 Euro Formula 3000 champion who went to win 15 World Touring Car Championship races, was 2013 DTM runner-up and currently races in the World Endurance Championship’s GT3 class, will lead the programme.

“Our vision is to create a unique platform where young drivers can experience exactly what their first year in formula racing will be like,” he said.

“Too often, drivers enter their debut season after fragmented testing with multiple teams, which results in inconsistent preparation and a lack of confidence. At our academy, each driver trains throughout the year with the same engineer and driver coach, building consistency, trust, and measurable progress.”

CotF claims a driver on the programme would get more mileage than competing in Italian F4, and its sessions will be scheduled on dates to not clash with international karting calendars. There will also be “a prize award for the driver of the season” and applications to enter the programme are already open.

The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team meanwhile has announced a collaboration with Motorsport Team Germany to develop new single-seater talent. Motorsport Team Germany is a driver development project created in 2022 by the German Motor Sport Federation and ADAC Sports Foundation.

A “joint selection process for particularly talented German kart drivers aged 10 or 11” will be the starting point of Mercedes’ involvement, and the drivers who are picked will then have their talents “be promoted” by it and Motorsport Team Germany. Drivers they sponsor will bear the federal eagle on their overalls.

“We are pleased to now take a structured step with the ADAC Sports Foundation to detect and developing German karting talent,” said Mercedes’ team principal Toto Wolff.

Wolfgang Dürheimer, the ADAC Sports Foundation chairman, said: “Through this project, we are continuing the tradition of nurturing young talent established by the former German motorsport governing body, the ONS, with Michael Schumacher.

“Financed by Mercedes and other leading partners from the automotive and supplier industries in the 1990s, the project ultimately led to Schumacher joining the Mercedes Junior Team and enjoying an extremely successful F1 career.”

There has recently been a controversy in the karting world surrounding comments by Alexander Wurz, who like Schumacher raced for Mercedes in sportscars as a rising talent in the 1990s.

In an interview with GPblog speaking on behalf of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association he chairs, he berated aerodynamic appendages and “downforce settings” on karts as being “absolutely insane” and making “it more expensive and perhaps more dangerous” due to creating rooster tails in wet conditions.

The FIA put out a statement claiming Wurz’s comments misrepresented technical regulations that “explicitly prohibit modifications to the aerodynamics, wings, or floors of karts” and only safety-tested parts can be FIA-approved.

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Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team has announced another five new additions to its driver development programme.

Reigning World Karting champion Ethan Jeff-Hall joined its ranks a month ago, with Mercedes confirming his arrival after he appeared in photographs with the team’s other juniors and its F1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

At the end of February, Prema then put out a video showing Rashid Al Dhaheri in Mercedes team kit and confirmation of his junior driver status did not come until Mercedes made a full line-up reveal this Friday.

The 16-year-old Al Dhaheri will feature in Prema’s Formula Regional European Champiohnship line-up this year, and began 2025 by driving for sister team Mumbai Falcons in FRegional Middle East. He came sixth in the standings with three podiums.

For the previous two years he has raced in Formula 4, making the podium once in the Italian championship and once in E4 (nee Euro 4), taking a win in F4 South East Asia and four on home soil in the United Arab Emirates.

Representing Mercedes in the FIA F3 Championship will be 17-year-old Noah Stromsted, who is embarking on his fifth year in single-seaters. He was Danish F4 runner-up in 2021 as a car racing rookie, and did two Spanish F4 rounds in 2022. The year after he was ninth in F4 UAE and seventh in Spanish F4, and made two FREC outings with Race Performance Motorsport.

He joined the team full-time in 2024, and was runner-up in four races en route to sixth in the FREC standings. Late in the year he reunited with his Spanish F4 team Campos Racing to make his F3 debut, and the Dane will be in the F1 support paddock full-time this season with Trident.

Yet to prove themselves in cars but also earning Mercedes’ backing are Andy Consani, Julia Montlaur and Many Nuvolini.

Consani, 15, will race in French F4 this year and was 16th in the CIK-FIA European championship for OK karts in 2024. He was also fourth in the WSK Euro Series, 21st in the WSK Final Cup and 36th in the CIK-FIA World championship.

In 2023 he raced on OK Junior karts, and was ninth in the World championship and 16th in the European championship, and back in 2021 he finished 18th in the Trofeo delle Industrie on his X30 Junior kart debut.

His fellow French racer Montlaur has so far competed in their home country’s mini karting scene with little success, and the 12-year-old is stepping up to junior karting for 2025.

Nuvolini, who is only 11 years old, is also spending this year in junior karting. He is currently 13th in the WSK Super Master Series for OK-N Junior karts. Last year he won the IAME Warrior Final and was IAME Series France champion on X30 Mini karts,

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Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

Kimi Antonelli is brushing off the significance of replacing Lewis Hamilton in Mercedes-AMG’s Formula 1 line-up, saying he “just feel like the next Mercedes driver”.

The 18-year-old not only takes the seat of the most successful F1 driver of all time, but does so as a rookie having come sixth in Formula 2 in 2024. He will be team-mate to George Russell, a fellow graduate of Mercedes’ driver development programme.

Antonelli first tested an F1 car 10 months ago, and since then has contested two practice sessions and post-season testing in contemporary machinery while doing private tests in older chassis.

• Read more: Why Antonelli’s boss has to match his maturity in realising his F1 dream

“The mountain is going to be going there and trying to win but at the same time you have to be realistic, I am racing against the 19 best drivers in the world,” Antonelli said exclusively to Formula Scout at the 2025 Autosport Awards.

“It’s not going to be easy but I’m just focused on the work I’ve got to do and do the best job possible while learning as much as possible and then we see where we end up.”

The Italian is one of six drivers contesting their first full season in F1 this year, and is delighted to see so many rookies on the grid.

“I’m happy to be stepping up with some former rivals. I’m really looking forward to racing against Ollie [Bearman, his Formula 2 team-mate] as well: he’s a great guy, a great team-mate and I got along really well with him last year.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff also spoke to Formula Scout, and heaped praise on the latest graduate of Mercedes’ driver development programme but said he and his colleagues must protect Antonelli and “manage his expectations”.

“Everybody’s going to think he’s going to be on pole and win the [season-opening] race in Melbourne and as much as we would like to dream the most important thing is to let him develop,” he said.

Such high expectations exist due to past statements about Antonelli’s performance potential, which have accompanied stellar results in junior single-seaters. He won two Formula 4 titles and two Formula Regional titles before jumping up to F2 last year, looked fast in his F1 practice outings, and this year’s Mercedes F1 W16 is anticipated to be a highly competitive car.

“Of course its a big seat but I don’t feel like the replacement of Lewis, I just feel like the next Mercedes driver. I’m just going to try and make the most out of the opportunity,” reiterated Antonelli, who now has little over a month before his F1 race debut.

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Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

Reigning world karting champion Ethan Jeff-Hall has been added to the Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior team for 2025.

The 16-year-old Briton [pictured top with Andrea Kimi Antonelli] will be moving into single-seaters this year, debuting in British Formula 4 with the Argenti Motorsport team that ran Mercedes-AMG F1 juniors in F4 and in karting last year.

Mercedes’ signing of an “over the moon” Jeff-Hall means he is no longer in contention to join the Ferrari Driver Academy. Last October he contested its scouting world final, and a winner is still yet to be announced.

That came a month after Jeff-Hall’s dramatic claiming of the CIK-FIA World championship for OK karts with a last-lap move on karting icon Joe Turney. The pair had made it through treacherously wet conditions at the PF International circuit with a clear advantage over everybody else, and Jeff-Hall was in second until Turney made a big mistake.

It was only Jeff-Hall’s second outing on OK karts, having focused on racing Rotax Senior machinery and also making his first steps in car racing by competing in entry-level sportscar series Ginetta Junior.

Jeff-Hall won European competitions on Rotax Junior karts in 2022, then in the senior class he won the Rotax Max Challenge International Trophy two years in a row. By starting on pole for the 2024 final, he also earned himself a spot in the FEED Racing France shootout but did not win the French F4 seat that was up for grabs there.

He was also third in the Rotax Max Challenge Winter Cup, and 16th in the Euro Trophy after missing the final round.

In Ginetta Junior, Jeff-Hall romped to the title with six victories, eight other podiums and seven poles.

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Photo: RBCP

Three of Formula 1’s rookies, and a Super Formula racer, have been busy testing this month in older cars to prepare for their grand prix debuts.

The first in action was Mercedes-AMG’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who drove the team’s F1 W11 car from 2020 at Jerez on Wednesday last week. It is the oldest of the team’s chassis he has sampled, having previously done tests in the 2021 and ’22 cars.

In the ‘Testing Previous Cars’ part of F1’s sporting regulations, this year teams have been capped at 20 days of running. However that applies to cars from 2021 to ’23, meaning Antonelli’s mileage was considered ‘Testing of Historic Cars’.

Imola was used by Racing Bulls and Sauber this week, with the latter running their new signing and reigning Formula 2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto while RB fielded promoted the two candidates for its second seat this year: Isack Hadjar, who won the support of Red Bull’s senior management to earn a place on the F1 grid for 2025, and Honda protege Ayumu Iwasa.

“Very positive. Very nice to be back in the car after almost two months. Quite happy with our progress through these two days. Basically all wet sessions, but very good, happy. Thanks to the whole team for making this TPC happen,” Bortoleto said after his running in the Sauber-designed Alfa Romeo C42 from 2022.

RB was on track for three days, and used the AlphaTauri AT04 it raced in 2023. Hadjar did the first two days, key preparation despite the wet conditions for his step up from F2 to F1, and SF racer Iwasa took over for the final day.

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Prema’s Doriane Pin edged out championship rival Abbi Pulling to set the fastest time in both of Friday’s F1 Academy practice sessions at the Losail circuit.

Pin’s best lap came in the final seconds of session two, denying Rodin Motorsport’s Pulling to the quickest time of the day by 0.101 seconds, while Prema’s wildcard driver Alisha Palmowski was close behind the pair in third ahead of her series debut.

There were early problems for points leader Pulling in session one, spending the first 20 minutes in the pitlane with a starter motor issue.

ART Grand Prix’s Aurelia Nobels was the first driver to post a lap time just before the 10-minute mark, and she initially led Rodin’s Jessica Edgar by 0.1 seconds. Edgar then took over at the top with a 1m58.705s, and she then made a series of improvements to maintain the advantage.

Pin’s first effort of the session came with 15 minutes remaining, and it was good enough to hold second briefly before Palmowski took the position away from the Mercedes Formula 1 junior with her first representative lap.  Pin then snatched first place from Edgar by 0.3s with a 1m56.654s, a lap good enough to top the session.

Prema’s other title contender Maya Weug climbed to second, and despite making a further improvement was pipped by 0.003s as the chequered flag fell by Pulling who ended the session 0.290s shy of Pin.  ART’s Bianca Bustamante and MP Motorsport’s Hamda Al Qubaisi both also made late improvements to fifth and sixth, demoting Palmowski to seventh.

Pulling immediately lowered the pace at the start of session two, posting a 1m56.453s lap and improving by 0.4s on her next attempt, but her advantage was then reduced to 0.2s by Palmowski.  Weug briefly went quickest with a 1m56.025s before Pulling responded with 1m55.785s, while Pin moved up to fourth.

Most of the field headed to the pitlane at the halfway stage, and lap times tumbled when drivers returned to track on new tyres in the final 10 minutes.

ART’s Lia Blocked move up to third before setting a new quickest lap of 1m55.517s on her effort. Palmowski then moved to the top by 0.04s and, after Weug lowered the pace by a further 0.02s, reclaimed first place with a 1m55.043s.

As the session approached its conclusion, Pin pipped Palmowski by 0.02s before Pulling beat the pair with a 1m54.895s, but Pin then set a 1m54.794s on her final lap. Weug ended the day in fourth, with Al Qubaisi fifth ahead of Edgar and Block, and MP’s Emily de Heus the final driver within one second of the pace in eighth.

Free practice round-up

Session one
1 Doriane Pin Prema 1m56.654s
2 Abbi Pulling Rodin Motorsport +0.290s
3 Maya Weug Prema +0.290s
4 Jessica Edgar Rodin Motorsport +0.344s
5 Bianca Bustamante ART Grand Prix +0.449s
6 Hamda Al Qubaisi MP Motorsport +0.496s
7 Alisha Palmowski Prema +0.543s
8 Carrie Schreiner Campos Racing +0.638s
9 Lia Block ART Grand Prix +0.643s
10 Chloe Chambers Campos Racing +07.49s

Session two
1 Pin 1m54.794s
2 Pulling +0.101s
3 Palmowski +0.142s
4 Weug +0.234s
5 Al Qubaisi +0.510s
6 Edgar +0.568s
7 Block +0.723s
8 Emily De Heus MP Motorsport +0.917s
9 Chambers +1.135s
10 Bustamante +1.214s

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Photo: Ida Wood

The Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 team has recruited karting legend Mike Wilson this year to help develop the youngest of its junior drivers.

Wilson was world champion of the Formula K kart category six times in the 1980s, establishing himself as one of the greatest ever talents to get behind the wheel of the sit-on vehicles which are the starting point for many single-seater stars.

In 2009, a mutual contact led to Lawrence Stroll – now the owner of the Aston Martin F1 team – getting Wilson to tutor his son Lance in karting. The Canadian was only 10 years old and in mini karting at the time, but Wilson headed to North America and took on the challenge.

Stroll was later brought under the wing of the Ferrari Driver Academy, won three titles in junior single-seaters and made it to F1 in 2017. He is now in his eighth season, and driving for his father’s team.

Wilson had run karts and assisted drivers once he stepped back from driving, and was back in the CIK-FIA World Karting Championship paddock this year in his new role coaching Mercedes-AMG F1 juniors James Anagnostiadis and Kenzo Craigie.

“This is the first year [I’ve worked with them],” Wilson explained to Formula Scout. “They’ve grown a lot, actually. I think every race has got its own story, every track is different. But I can see that the boys have step-by-step always got better. Which is, that’s our goal, basically.”

Gwen Lagrue, Mercedes’ driver development advisor, was responsible for recruiting Wilson and it was a canny signing since his two Wilson-backed proteges finished one-two in the OK Junior final of the world championship in September.

“When Kenzo got to second, I thought ‘okay, it’s a good result’, because in the world championship even second place is good. So we would have been second and fourth. But I knew [Kit] Belofsky was under investigation, so I thought ‘well, he’s going to get a five-second penalty for sure, which then moves James from fourth to third’. And then on the last lap what happened, what happened between them? And Baglin…”

Cragie secured victory in dramatic fashion after clashing with Prema team-mate Noah Baglin at the very last corner of the race, which stewards deemed him not at fault for.

“It’s racing, and you could see on the video, they said it was more Baglin who turns into Kenzo. Kenzo was on the gravel [on that last lap]. He couldn’t do anything. No grip, nothing.”

Formula Scout asked Wilson if the wet conditions of the OK and OK-J finals that weekend were among the worst he had ever seen when it came to standing water, and he replied with two yeses. He was therefore impressed by all the drivers who had managed to stay on track.

“[All] very good, yeah. Especially on this track, because it’s really, really slippery. I mean, we’ve got other tracks when it rains, yeah okay it’s slippery, but not as bad as this.”

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