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: Red Bull

Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko, the architect of the brand’s junior programme that took numerous drivers to Formula 1, is to step down from his role.

The 82-year-old Austrian, who started 10 F1 grands prix as a driver and won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1971, founded the RSM Marko team that competed successfully in Formula 3000 in the 1990s and ran as the official Red Bull Junior Team from 1999 to 2003.

The Red Bull Junior Team was also the name of the junior programme led by Marko that from 2001 onwards would support drivers across the junior single-seater ladder and karting.

Marko has continued to play an active role in identifying and signing young drivers to the programme over the last 20 years alongside helping to run the company’s two F1 teams.

A Red Bull statement confirming Marko’s departure listed the names of 20 drivers who have reached F1 after being part of the programme, including four-time world champions Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen as well as Arvid Lindblad, who will make his debut with Racing Bulls in 2026.

“I have been involved in motorsport for six decades now, and the past 20-plus years at Red Bull have been an extraordinary and extremely successful journey. It has been a wonderful time that I have been able to help shape and share with so many talented people. Everything we have built and achieved together fills me with pride,” Marko said.

“Narrowly missing out on the world championship this season has moved me deeply and made it clear to me that now is the right moment for me personally to end this very long, intense, and successful chapter.

“I wish the entire team continued success and am convinced that they will be fighting for both world championship titles again next year.”

Speculation had been rife since last weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix about Marko’s impending exit. Some reports have included unconfirmed suggestions that Marko had recently made efforts to sign F2 standout Alex Dunne – who parted company with former backer McLaren in October – only to be overruled by Red Bull management.

Red Bull said Marko’s departure is his own decision. Paying tribute, Oliver Mintzlaff, CEO of corporate projects and investments at Red Bull, said: “His instinct for exceptional talent not only shaped our junior programme but also left a lasting impact on F1 as a whole.

“Names like Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen stand for the many drivers who were discovered, supported, and guided to the very top under his leadership. His passion, his courage to make clear decisions, and his ability to spot potential will remain unforgettable.”

Guillaume Rocquelin, race engineer to Vettel during his run of four consecutive F1 titles, has also been heavily involved in the development of Red Bull’s young drivers since 2022 and would be an obvious candidate to lead the programme moving forwards.

The post Helmut Marko, Red Bull’s F1 junior guru, to step down from role appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Swiss karter Chiara Battig has been announced as joining the Red Bull Junior Team, and stepping up to Formula 4 next year.

The 15-year-old was selected after contesting the Red Bull Driver Search at Estoril earlier this month, which involved testing in F4 cars run by Campos Racing. It was Battig’s first running in single-seater machinery.

Battig came 15th in the CIK-FIA European championship for OK karts this year, with her rookie year in senior karting starting on a high but then lacking results. In the opening round she looked like a victory contender for most of the weekend and finished the final in fifth, but scored no points in the subsequent three rounds and dropped down the standings.

“It means a lot to me to be a Red Bull junior driver,” said Battig. “I think the RBJT is really exciting, and I think they are making really good progress with their drivers. It’s my first time in a single-seater car, we adapted really well and I’m happy about that.”

“My ultimate goal is to reach Formula 1 and become world champion. My plan for next year is to race in F4 and my mindset is that I know what I’m capable of. I hope to inspire young female karters to take the same journey I am making now.”

Battig was in the Alpine F1 team’s female-focused Rac(H)er programme in 2023, but departed it for 2024. Although she won a third successive Swiss championship on OK Junior karts, she lacked results abroad until November when she joined Martins and his brother Nicolas’s Victory Lane team for the step up to senior karting.

Two eye-catching outings raised expectations for 2025, but bad luck masked her pace before the European championship opener at Campillos.

She was 46th in WSK’s Super Master Series earlier this year and is currently 25th in Champions of the Future, while on OK-N karts she is currently third in the CotF Academy Program.

RBJT chief Helmut Marko said Battig’s “performance was very good” at Estoril, and “the speed she showed in the formula car means we are looking forward to a very successful season” in 2026.

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Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

There will be two more additions to the Red Bull Junior Team in 2025, with Niklas Schaufler and Nikola Tsolov joining its ranks.

Tsolov announced his departure from the rival Alpine Academy earlier this week, then was confirmed as switching to Campos Racing for his third season in FIA Formula 3 next year.

The 17-year-old Bulgarian won the 2022 Spanish Formula 4 title as a single-seater rookie, taking the crown with 13 victories from 21 races. He has raced for Global Racing Service in Eurocup-3 and ART Grand Prix in the F3 since then.

His seven Eurocup-3 outings so far have resulted in two poles and three podiums, and in F3 he scored six points as a rookie then improved to 75 this season. Although he won three times, in the Monaco and Red Bull Ring sprint races and the Hungaroring feature race, he only scoreds in four other races to end up 11th in the standings.

Tsolov became an afilliate of the Alpine Academy in March 2022, then became a full member 11 months later. Shortly before being signing by them, his career came under the guidance of the A14 Management company launched by Fernando Alonso.

Formula Scout has learned that Campos played a crucial role in Tsolov’s new F1 allegiance. The Spanish outfit was keen to have Tsolov in its 2025 FIA F3 line-up as soon as the 2024 season ended, and ran him in post-season tests in Spain where he topped multiple sessions.

During its process of signing him, and when it became clear the Bulgarian would be without Alpine’s backing in 2025, Campos began communications with Red Bull and worked to ensure Tsolov got a contract with them too. His car will run with a full Red Bull livery in 2025.

In mid-September, Red Bull also announced Austrian karter Schaufler would become one of its juniors next year.

On OK Junior karts he won the Italian championship and South Garda Winter Cup and was WSK Champions Cup runner-up in 2023, then this year he won the Champions Cup and WSK Super Master Series before coming second in the Champions of the Future series. Schaufler turns 15 next January, and Red Bull will place him in a F4 programme for 2025.

Red Bull signed two karters to its junior team in August, then another two in September along with two drivers already in F4.

The post Red Bull add Niklas Schaufler and Nikola Tsolov to junior team for 2025 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Red Bull has added four more new names to its Junior Team roster following the relaunch of its Driver Search initiative.

Eleven young drivers aged 13 to 16 were invited to Jerez in August and assessed across Formula 4 and GP3 machinery run by Campos Racing. The first two drivers to be selected from this group, karters Fionn McLauglin and Scott Lindblom, were already announced last month.

They have now been joined by four more new signings: Ernesto Rivera and Jules Caranta, who are already racing in F4 this year, plus Rocco Coronel and Christopher Feghali from karting.

Mexican driver Rivera, 15, had already been linked with Red Bull after being seen with advisor Helmut Marko earlier this year. He has been racing with Campos in the Formula Winter Series and Spanish F4, taking one win in the latter and currently sitting fifth in the standings. That has come off the back of success in SKUSA karting in the United States last year, where he won the X30 Junior Winter Series and KA100 Senior SuperNationals titles.

Frenchman Caranta turned 16 last month and is also contesting his rookie season in cars, and fighting for the French F4 title with four wins so far after coming 15th in the United Arab Emirates series with Sainteloc Racing. He was 16th in the World Karting Championship in the senior OK class last year, after winning the IAME Euro Series in X30 Junior the season before.

Thirteen-year-old Coronel is the son of Japanese Formula 3 and Formula Nippon champion, touring car racer and Dutch Formula 1 pundit Tom and fellow racer Paulien Zwart and has had a strong season in OK Junior karts, placing fifth in Champions of the Future, 12th in the CIK-FIA European Championship and fourth in WSK’s Champions Cup.

Guided by the Victory Lane setup of Formula 2 racer Victor Martins and his brother Nicolas, Coronel last year came third in the IAME Euro Series, second in WSK Open Series and fourth in WSK Champions Cup in X30 Juniors, where he also finished fourth in the IAME Winter Cup earlier this year.

Lebanese driver Feghali turned 15 at the end of August and earlier this year joined Andrea Kimi Antonelli on the books of Minardi Management, run by Giovanni Minardi, son of Giancarlo. He comes from a rallying family, as father Abdo, uncle Roger and cousin Alex have all been successful in the discipline, while Abdo has also found fame in drifting with Red Bull sponsorship.

Feghali Jr has already driven in F4 tests with Drivex and last year came 13th in the OK Junior world championship and 20th in the IAME X30 Junior Euro Series. He currently leads the Rotax Max Senior standings in Lebanon.

The post Red Bull picks four more junior signings after driver search shootout appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Red Bull has announced it has added karters Fionn McLaughlin and Scott Lindblom to its junior team.

The pair earned their spots through the relaunch of the Red Bull Driver Search, a shootout which first ran before the brand even had its own Formula 1 team.

Red Bull rented the Jerez circuit for three days last week to trial 11 drivers aged 13-16 in a group of GP3 and Formula 4 cars with the technical support of Campos Racing (which runs Red Bull juniors in Formula 2 and F4).

The finalists other than Lindblom and McLaughlin have not been named, and while “more Red Bull Driver Search names going through to the programme will be announced soon” it is not clear if they were also participants of the Jerez test. It has also not been stated if the single-seater newcomers were all benchmarked in both machines or only in the entry-level F4 car.

Lindblom said “my biggest challenge was adjusting my driving style from karting to F4 because it was my first time in a F4 car”, but it did not prove an issue as RBJT boss Dr Helmut Marko noted “he went out and was straight away competitive”.

The 14-year-old Swede leads the WSK Euro Series for OK karts, having only stepped up to senior karting in June, is currently 11th in the Champions of the Future series and has performed strongly in the CIK-FIA European championship too but has not been entered for points.

He started 2024 by coming 11th in the WSK Super Master Series for OK Junior karts, and in that category he was previously third in the CIK-FIA World championship, fourth in the WSK Euro Series, 11th in CotF and 15th in the European championship.

McLaughlin is 16, and the Irishman has come seventh and sixth in the European championship the last two years. In CotF he was 16th in 2023 and is currently fourth in the 2024 standings. On X30 Senior karts he has also had success, starring in this year’s Winter Cup before embarking on a championship-leading Euro Series campaign. He came fourth in it last year.

On X30 Junior karts he was IAME Warriors Final runner-up, fourth in the IAME Euro Series and Winter Cup.

The inaugural running of RBJT’s driver search was in 2002 and sought to find and then support a young American driver, with the intent of getting them to F1. There were 15 shortlisted, aged 16-24, who made it through to a shootout test at Paul Ricard but two chose not to attend and there was controversies before the test occurred.

Low-powered single-seaters were used, intended to remove the experience advantage for the finalists already racing in higher tiers of the open-wheel ladder, and Paul Edwards, Grant Maiman, Joel Nelson and Scott Speed were signed as juniors.

Later in the 2000s once it had its own team on the grid, drivers such as Daniel Ricciardo were selected to join the Junior Team from similar shootouts against other young drivers, but more recently Red Bull has usually scouted out drivers on an individual basis.

The post Red Bull signs karters Scott Lindblom and Fionn McLaughlin as juniors appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Kacper Sztuka

Sixteen years on from Robert Kubica’s F1 victory, Polish motor racing is on the verge of a new boom. Two drivers leading the current generation of young Polish single-seater talent join the Formula Scout podcast.

Born just a month apart in the same hospital in southern Poland, Kacper Sztuka, the reigning Italian Formula 4 champion, and Tymoteusz “Tymek” Kucharczyk, the current points leader in GB3, have progressed through the ranks together.

Their fathers, Lukasz and Maciej, competed against each other in rallies and their sons “started karting together when we were like four years old,” explains Sztuka. “Tymek’s father was pushing my father to do it together and we finally made it to the track.”

After competing together through their karting years, the childhood friends have since taken diverging paths as Sztuka headed to Italy, winning the F4 title at his third attempt, before being snapped up by Red Bull to join MP Motorsport in FIA Formula 3 for 2024.

Kucharczyk graduated to F4 in Spain, courtesy of the Richard Mille Talent Academy shootout, taking third in the championship in 2022, before moving up to GB3 in Britain last season.

Illustrating the brutal ups-and-downs of motorsport, after a stunning second half to his F4 season with 10 wins from 12 starts in the Italian and Euro championships, Sztuka has endured a difficult start to his F3 season, reaching a nadir with the announcement just after our interview that he had been abruptly dropped by the Red Bull junior programme.

Kucharczyk, on the other hand, has bounced back from a difficult learning year in GB3 to score three victories with Hitech GP, including two last time out at Spa-Francorchamps, to sit on top of the championship standings after three rounds.

“I’m just super grateful, to be honest, because it finally seems that everything starts to work out really well for me and for the team,” Kucharczyk says.

“We’ve been quite a bit unlucky for the first two rounds, especially in round one when we should have scored a podium.” After “a bit of my mistake in race two at Oulton [Park] and a much better round two at Silverstone and then that amazing last round at Spa,” he finds himself leading the championship, “which is really crazy,” he says.

“We were super quick all weekend. Whatever the conditions were, if it was either like wet or dry, we were the quickest. That gives us a lot of confidence for the next round. I have a lot of positives to take out of the weekend. I’ve learned quite a lot of stuff. The more laps I do, it’s just getting better and better.”

Despite his two wins in Belgium, he is aware that there are still areas to improve. “I know I should have done a better job on my second-best lap [and] in the last race. There’s so much going on in race weekends and your driving is so limited that you don’t know really what could happen, but I’m just happy that I didn’t take that too much risk that I could deliver the results that gave me the championship lead, that’s the most important thing.”

Now, he adds, he needs “just to keep that momentum going and score the points and keep on this form.”

Having moved across from Douglas Motorsport over the winter, Kucharczyk underlines the hard work he and his new team Hitech have put in “because we struggled a bit in the beginning of this season, I’m not going to lie.”

Although the decision to go to Hitech came “quite late, so I didn’t have much time to adapt to a new team,” he has settled in quickly, helped as well by already knowing his team-mates from karting.

“The people [in Hitech] are taking their job really professionally and are true fans of motorsport,” he enthuses. “It’s a huge team, with F4, GB3, FIA F3 and F2, so there’s a lot of people walking around and my team boss is a really important person in the paddock.”

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

“It was not easy really in the first few test days [and] we didn’t show our real true pace but I’m just happy that in the races we could prove everyone wrong. Six wins in a row for Hitech GP just shows on what level we are right now,” he says.

Besides adapting to the new team environment, “the tyres changed a bit. I think I had to adapt a bit longer than I would have expected to do, but I’m super happy to make the team proud [and] to finally make some good results.”

Kucharczyk feels that he has developed in the last year. “I generally think that I’m a bit more mature driving now, I’m a bit calmer. I’m trying to analyse a bit more what’s going on around me and [what] the track’s looking like.

“Now I’m trying to be a bit more focused on the setup and also only on the driving while I’m in the car. I just know what I have to do really and obviously, I believe the team that they give me a good package so I can just do my job, and I don’t need to care about anything.

“Last year it’s been a bit of ups and downs. It was never really constantly good. We were fast last year. Most weekends, at some point we were the fastest or closer to the fastest, but something was just not clicking right. What I think I was lacking a bit [was] that confidence from the team that you know that they can deliver the car and I can just deliver the results. The way the team works, it’s just so professional, like another level really. So, everything is turning out how it should be really.”

As Kucharczyk’s world looks increasingly bright, Sztuka has been struggling to get to grips with “the very big step” to F3, with the added pressure of Red Bull’s expectations upon him.

After two seasons with US Racing in F4, meaning he “spent a lot of time with the team, the mechanics and the engineers,” he has also been adapting to a new environment at MP Motorsport.

Photo: Red Bull

Though the lack of testing compared to F4 has made “the process of getting used to the team a bit slower,” he was able to establish “a very good feeling with the team” from day one, he says. Compared to F4, he has been shocked by the amount and depth of data analysis required in a top F3 team like MP.

“I’m happy to be in this team. As a rookie it’s a really good place to learn and to build the pace there. The teamwork which is very important in F3 is done properly. We are getting used to each other in the team,” Sztuka adds.

On track, the opening rounds in Bahrain and Melbourne “were something different to what we have in the normal European season,” he admits.

Racing for the first time outside Europe, Bahrain’s abrasive track surface and resulting “really high” tyre degradation caught him out, while F3’s limited track time meant he was under immediate pressure to learn the Albert Park circuit.

Despite that, he believes that “it wasn’t as bad as the result was for me in terms of driving, especially in qualifying as it improved by a lot comparing to Bahrain. It just seemed like the pace wasn’t there from practice until the feature race,” he explains.

Back in Europe, Sztuka feels that the “Barcelona test gave me for sure a much better feeling in the car,” ahead of the Imola-Monaco double-header.

He’d been hoping to show stronger form at Imola, a circuit where he won in F4, and “improved” qualifying pace put him 12th which, he says, “wasn’t actually too bad. I wouldn’t normally be happy with P12 in qualifying, even though it gives me pole position on Saturday, but the fact I did it on used tyres makes it a bit better. For sure I’m not saying I would score pole position, but I think I could be a bit higher with a new set.”

Photo: Red Bull

Despite those positive signs, he again struggled for pace in the races. He did score his first points with fifth in the sprint race but would have been hoping for better after starting from reversed-grid pole. “Difficult first lap on Saturday and then a bit of struggle in in the first part,” he says, and while Sunday’s race brought further disappointment, he felt that he had “learned a lot from Imola.”

While “not happy with the result” on his first-ever race on a “proper street circuit” at Monaco, it still “wasn’t too bad,” he believes. “I wish I was in the points all weekend, but I’m not saying it was a completely negative weekend. There were some positives, and we also found a good balance on Sunday with the race set up.”

As the F3 field heads back to Barcelona and a run of tracks he knows, he is confident that he and his MP Motorsport team have made some strong progress, with “a lot of lessons learned in these two weeks,” making improvements on his main weakness so far, the all-important one lap qualifying runs.

“Now we have to work on the race runs and, of course, keep improving qualifying but we are for sure moving in a good direction. I think there is for sure a few reasons to bring better results.

“But in the end, it’s about the performance, the speed and the work you put in,” he reflects.

As Sztuka looks forward to showing his potential on circuits he knows, his backers at Red Bull have, after just four rounds, decided to put an end to their cooperation.

Speaking before the split was announced, Sztuka had been positive about the support from Red Bull, including runs on the sim in Milton Keynes, singling out the head of the driver academy, Sebastian Vettel’s former engineer, Guillaume Rocquelin, better known as “Rocky”, for praise.

Photo: Red Bull

“He comes after each race to have a chat, to speak about what went well and what went wrong” Sztuka says. Interestingly, given what later transpired, he adds that “we also spoke about the progress and we both think that that the results should come, and we should focus on what we do on the driving, and I hope we can get good results.”

As for Dr. Helmut Marko, “the contact is more limited than people think,” he adds.

While Sztuka has said on social media that he intends to see out the F3 season, the loss of Red Bull support inevitably re-opens the never-ending search for budgets, something that both Sztuka and Kucharczyk have struggled with.

Kucharczyk has no doubts that without the budget that came from winning the Richard Mille award, he wouldn’t have been able to move up to cars. “Winning the shootout made me able to race in formula cars. That’s a fact. Without winning it, I wouldn’t be here. I guess I’d be still in karting or whatever, doing some nonsense stuff really at this age.”

The Polish fans, who previously supported Kubica in great numbers, have waited a long time for the next heroes to cheer for.

Sztuka appreciates the “great support. The Polish fans are the best fans, as we say. I’m grateful to have them.”

“There are a lot of people watching our sport, especially due to the Netflix series [Drive To Survive] which had an impact obviously. It’s a very popular sport and as we are climbing to the pinnacle of motorsport, there are more and more people following us.”

Kucharczyk says he has even seen Polish flags “at Silverstone, which was really, really good. I was just driving with my smile all lap long, just waiting for the flags on the straight,” he laughs.

“I would say that the generation we have now of Polish drivers is probably like the golden era of single-seater race car drivers in Poland for a very long time, since Robert Kubica really,” he continues.

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

“But Poland is more of a rally country than a racing country and people don’t realise how expensive it is,” says Kucharczyk.

“There’s a lot of talented drivers in Poland right now that could easily go up to FIA F3 or FIA F2 just like me and Kacper,” he maintains.

“Poland just needs to understand that without real backup, a real academy or whatever, without the support of Polish government, we probably won’t reach F1 or be even close to F1. It’s just financially not possible. Me and Kasper are working very hard to show all the little kids racing in Poland that is possible to race. But they have to work very, very hard and get that financial back up.”

Sztuka agrees: “Just the fact I made it to F3 makes me really proud because it’s not really possible for some other drivers even though they are very talented.”

“There are many talented Polish drivers right now, so I think we have a very good potential to have at least one of us in F1 [but] it’s really important right now for Poland to give them the financial support and at least a chance to show themselves.”

Kucharczyk emphasizes that “getting the financial backup is so hard in Poland that probably for most of the young Polish drivers, it’s just hard to show off their real skill. Me and Kacper obviously got super lucky that we managed to race together in karts to be in that kind of environment where all the young talents are showing up and we were one of the brightest out there. But not everyone gets that lucky.”

The lifelong friends spent “eight or nine years” racing karts, “staying in the same hotel, travelling together in the same car or plane.”

Sztuka remembers “some other drivers on the way, [who] were with us for two or three years but only me and Tymek were there from the beginning until the very end of karting. And then, of course, we split in F4 but I hope we can we can get back together as F3 and F2 is a world championship so you cannot choose anything else than that.”

Photo: WSK Karting

So, the big question: who was faster in karts?

To Kucharczyk’s pleasant surprise, Sztuka modestly suggests that “Tymek was faster, looking at the whole career of karting. I had good moments, but I think Tymek just had more good moments than me. A shame we couldn’t compare each other in F4, but in karting he was faster.”

For his part, Kucharczyk (pictured above in 2021) acknowledges that “in one lap pace, Kacper could really be impressive, [which] sometimes caught me absolutely off guard.

“I would say also I had a bit more constant karting career, so Kacper did quite a bit of switching between teams, trying to find that sweet spot, where I just basically stayed in two teams for most of my karting career.”

Could the friends be reunited on the FIA F3 grid in 2025, budgets permitting? Or even F2, as the pair jokingly suggested during the interview?

Kucharczyk is clearly heading in the right direction for F3, if he can maintain his current form. “The GB3 car is actually a bit quicker than the FRECA so I would assume that it prepares you a bit better to FIA F3 and so to FIA F2 too. Just where will I get the money from?” he laughs.

Sztuka has always been a driver who requires more time to adapt to a new category, something that obviously sat uneasily with Red Bull’s operational style. Hopefully, without the strictures of an F1 academy to adhere to, he can find his own rhythm and rebuild his confidence to prove his doubters wrong.

The enthusiastic and loyal Polish fans will certainly be hoping for another driver or two to cheer for at the top levels soon.

Photo: Tymek Kucharczyk

The post Pole positions: The lifelong friends leading a Polish racing resurgence appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull

Kacper Sztuka has announced that he is no longer a Red Bull junior, less than seven months after he picked up the support of the Formula 1 team.

The 18-year-old Pole became a Red Bull Junior Team member in November 2023 after winning the Formula Winter Series and Italian Formula 4 titles as a third-year driver in the category.

For 2024 he stepped up to FIA Formula 3 with MP Motorsport, and four rounds into the season sits 19th in the standings with fifth place in the Imola sprint race being his best result and also his only points finish so far.

Sztuka wrote on social media in Polish to reveal that his time with Red Bull has ended, and reassured that it would not also mean an end to his F3 campaign:

I wanted to share with you information about my development and further performances in F3 this season. In recent weeks, the contract with Red Bull’s junior programme was terminated at the partner’s initiative.

Until the end of the co-operation, my starts, my functioning in the team and the progress I made were positively assessed by all people working directly with me.

Thank you very much to everyone who has been involved in the project I have been part of since November 2023.

The above decision does not affect the assessment of the MP Motorsport team and our start plans. In the 2024 season, thanks to my sponsors’ support, I intend to compete in all the remaining rounds of the FIA F3 Championship and continue to develop as a driver both on and off the track.

My determination to be the fastest, to win and one day race against the best drivers in the world remains unchanged. Thank you for all the words of support. We are entering the final stages of preparations for the race in Barcelona. See you on the track!

The post F3 racer Kacper Sztuka leaves Red Bull Junior Team appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Adrian Campos Jr has explained the story behind his Campos Racing team’s new alliance with Formula 1 giant Red Bull in the support paddock.

Formula 2’s 2024 grid features two Red Bull Junior Team members, Isack Hadjar and Pepe Marti, and both race for Campos.

“It’s the first time that we are a Red Bull junior team in F2,” Campos told Formula Scout. “We have been working with them in the past in lower categories [in two Formula 3 events in 2023]. To have the chance to do it in F2 is very important for a growing structure like we are.

“We want to do more things and better. So to have success in the motorsport world you need to partner with the best. And at this moment Red Bull is the best. They also have under control the best drivers. So in order to achieve the best results we need to be with them. I’m very proud to have this partnership in F2 with them and I am looking forward to extend it.”

Campos reckoned his team’s recent form across junior single-seater racing was key to gaining the partnership.

“They know the capacities that we have on the technical side. And they understood that with the right tools and the right drivers we could achieve very important things. So at the end this was the main thing for them. They gave us the opportunity and I think we are delivering the results.”

After round five of the season, Campos Racing leads the teams’ standings. Marti was on the podium twice at Bahrain, while Hadjar won the Melbourne and Imola feature races and just missed out on winning a third in Monaco. He was first on-the-road in Imola’s sprint race, but a penalty for causing a collision demoted him to sixth.

According to Campos, the alliance has meant his drivers “are having great preparation” for each race weekend.

“We do preparation in our workshop and also we send our engineers and our drivers to Red Bull. And they allow us also to prepare the races together with them there.

“We’re working together to improve both sides, our simulator and their simulator. Because obviously we have more information about the F2 than what they have. The software of these cars is more accurate [on] the one that we did than the one that they have. But the hardware is way better what they have. So we are trying to put something together. They are very open to work together. And this is something we are getting benefit from because they have a structure [as an F1 operation] we cannot have.”

Campos added that the gains his team gets transcend the technical department, with “more income in terms of sponsorship than we have ever had in the past”. 

“When we were closing the deal with Red Bull, with Helmut [Marko] in this case, we could make a strong proposal because we were expecting a bigger income in terms of sponsorship,” he explained.

The post Campos Racing explains its Red Bull Junior Team partnership in F2 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: MGPC

10 years ago today, Max Verstappen debuted in F3. Less than four months later he joined Red Bull’s Junior Team, and the week after was signed by its second F1 squad Toro Rosso. But what if F1 hadn’t been waiting?

With hindsight, the decision by Red Bull to put Max Verstappen in a Formula 1 seat after just a year in car racing looks indisputable. But as Frits van Amersfoort says, an F1-ready talent was visible right from the day he appeared in Formula 3.

Verstappen had two top F1 teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, fighting over his signature just a few races into his F3 career. But which would he have partnered with had Red Bull not owned two F1 teams, the key factor that made a 2015 race seat possible?

Patience is a word absent from Jos Verstappen’s dictionary, and when it came to son Max he was always in a hurry to move on and up.

After a successful karting career, the younger Verstappen made his car racing debut in the Ferrari Driver Academy-organised and Formula Abarth-spec Florida Winter Series at the start of 2014. From 12 races in the entry-level cars he took two wins, three other podiums, three fastest laps and three poles.

Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing had then been approached to run Verstappen in FIA European F3. But not by his dad.

Rather it was former F1 driver Huub Rothengatter, who had managed Jos’s career in the 1990s. Rothengatter “knew Max was something special,” VAR’s team boss van Amersfoort recalls to Formula Scout.

“Jos wanted to do Formula Renault [2.0],” he adds. “Together with Huub, I always said put Max straight in an F3 car. Forget about these single-make things like FR2.0 because they are highly political and when they don’t give you the right engine, you’re basically fucked.

Photo: Asensi Carricondo

“Jos wasn’t too convinced, so he kept his eyes on FR2.0. Max tested a lot of FR2.0 teams and cars and in December he tested for Motopark in F3 in Valencia.”

Verstappen “was totally fast but it was difficult for us in those days because somehow Jos was not convinced about our competitiveness”, admits van Amersfoort.

VAR took Jos Verstappen to the 1992 Formula Opel Lotus Benelux title, launching him on the path to F1, and by the early 2010s it was running mainly in German F3. That was less competitive than the European championship, and its debut season in the latter in 2013 certainly didn’t indicate any title-challenging potential.

After the month in Florida, “Jos was really unhappy” and felt that his son had not been given equal equipment. With the clock ticking down, it was Rothengatter who made the decision to commit to F3.

“There were many other people [around] Max who said ‘we are going to help’, but in the end they didn’t, and Huub put his money where his mouth was, put the money in to buy a car because we couldn’t finance the car ourselves and making the first down payment to get going, to pay the entry fees,” recalls van Amersfoort.

“We got a free engine from Jost Capito at Volkswagen, so that helped a lot. We put the car together and one week later we were on our way to Hungary for the first official test. On our way to Hungary, we stopped at Most in the Czech Republic to do the roll-out.

“From the beginning it was fantastic. Even before that we knew that it was going to be special. Of course, the pressure on us was pretty heavy, because we knew Jos was sceptical, but there wasn’t much to say from Jos’s side because Huub paid.”

Rothengatter and Verstappen subsequently fell out in a big way, “making war over a 16 year-old kid who still needed to prove himself”, much to van Amersfoort’s sadness.

Photo: FIA European F3

Third fastest in the two-day Hungaroring test, Verstappen then topped the times four days later in the second official test at the Red Bull Ring.

“In the first test we had a gearbox problem,” reveals van Amersfoort. “Jos jumped in his car and drove to Dallara, up and down. And the next morning he was back with a new gearbox. And that’s also Jos – everything for Max.”

The season opener took place at Silverstone on April 19-20, supporting the World Endurance Championship. Verstappen qualified fourth for race one but the team “suffered some technical problems with the car – we chose the wrong clutch and we had some clutch problems”.

Verstappen retired in race one, was fifth in race two then passed eventual champion Esteban Ocon to be second in race three.

“We changed the clutch and went to Hockenheim [for round two] and the technical mayhem started again because he drove pole but the car died on the outlap. It was the loom,” continues van Amersfoort.

“Eyebrows with Jos and bla, bla, bla, not easy, but the mechanics changed the loom between the races. That was fantastic because there was not much time and then he won the last race.

Verstappen would go on to score another nine victories, including a mid-season streak of six in a row at Spa-Francorchamps and the Norisring. “And then the whole roller coaster started…”

The teenager was now hot property in the car racing world. But Jos was determined to hold out for the best possible deal.

“There was already contact between Jos and Helmut [Marko, head of Red Bull’s driver development]. That also shows how good the view from Jos is on a talent like Max. He kept Helmut at bay.”

Photo: Philip Platzer/Red Bull Content Pool

Those conversations were unbeknown to van Amersfoort at the time, stressing that he was not party to any of the discussions directly, but he understood “that at the point where Max was winning, Helmut came back, and the deal was done”. The deal was finally signed following the series’ visit to the Red Bull Ring in early August.

Jos Verstappen said on his family’s website that he had been unable to sleep “for three weeks” prior to putting pen to paper.

“Especially during the Euro F3 weekend in Austria, when we talked to Dr. Helmut Marko. Every morning I was wide awake at 4.30am, whereas Max was sound asleep,” he admitted.

“I remember that Sunday morning, when we were phoning at six in the morning and Raymond [Vermeulen, the manager of both Verstappens] and myself were ploughing through several documents whilst negotiating. It was all very intense, also because Red Bull were so driven and engaging.”

The Verstappens then disclosed the 2015 F1 move to certain parties by inviting them to their house, including van Amersfoort.

“At a certain point in the middle of the season our team was invited to come to Limburg where [the Verstappens] lived and they told us in confidence that Max had signed for Toro Rosso. So, he moved straight from F3 to F1. Unbelievable!”

Once the Red Bull Junior Team membership was confirmed, VAR had to swap its team colours for the instantly recognisable Red Bull livery on Verstappen’s car. “But we were happy to do that, of course,” says van Amersfoort.

In the next round at the Nurburgring on August 16/17, engine reliability problems struck again. The unit “had to go back to [tuner] Spiess lots of times and in August it all went wrong because a conrod went through the engine and the [grid] penalty in those days was three times 10 places, but in the end, it also fits in the story”.

Photo: FIA European F3

There was a break of almost two months before round 10 at Imola, which was “a race weekend I will never forget” for van Amersfoort.

“Max was flying. And he did something you hardly see in F3 going from P11 to P2. It was incredible. What people never see is that the dramas in the paddock because Trevor Carlin was furious with Spiess thinking we had a special engine. It was absolutely fantastic!” he smiles.

“We had a normal Volkswagen. It was the days when F3 was really F3. In the end it was the best decision to do F3 because in those days F3 was much more free than now. You could do some things in the car. The engines of course were the real F3 engines. And it was a fantastic year.”

The car itself now belongs to Rothengatter, the man who put the money down to buy it in the first place. For a long period, it graced the entrance to VAR’s factory in the Netherlands but “is now hidden”.

Verstappen finished third in the standings, 67 points behind Ocon. But since it was a 33-race schedule, and more than a third of that gap was built by Ocon in a race Verstappen missed, he was only outscored on average by 1.31 points per race.

That impressed the motorsport world, but if no F1 seat had been available for 2015 what would Verstappen have done next?

As is now well-known, Red Bull ultimately won out over Mercedes-AMG in attracting Verstappen to its junior team because it could offer an immediate step up into F1, bypassing GP2 or Formula Renault 3.5.

“Max was very good in karting, was good in F3, and it was clear that he was a big one that’s growing,” said Mercedes-AMG F1 team principal Toto Wolff on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast in 2023.

Verstappen in the DTM? (Photo: Jim Moir)

“We talked to them in the initial phases and it was a nice discussion with Jos and with Max as well But it was clear we couldn’t give him a seat because we had Nico [Rosberg] and we had Lewis [Hamilton]. We offered to support Max in Formula 2 [known as GP2 at the time], but since Red Bull was able to offer them the AlphaTauri seat – or Toro Rosso back in the day – it got Max into the seat.”

Had Red Bull had not had that benefit of owning two teams in F1, or had not been prepared to use it by placing him at Toro Rosso in 2015, would Verstappen’s career and possibly the last 10 years of motorsport have looked very different?

As Wolff explained, the best Mercedes could offer was GP2, where neither it or Red Bull had an affiliation with a competing team. Although Mercedes had supported young drivers for many years, its F1 junior team was only launched in 2014 and in its preferred path for F3 graduates had been to send them to DTM where its Mercedes-Benz touring cars were raced. Pascal Wehrlein was already in the DTM when the junior team launched, and after winning the 2015 title he got moved to F1 with the Mercedes-powered Manor team.

It is, however, inconceivable that the Verstappen camp would have considered spending a year away from single-seaters.

Wolff had a longstanding relationship with ART Grand Prix’s then-team boss Fred Vasseur, and the team competed in the DTM (with a Mercedes car) and in single-seaters. Ocon got snapped up by Mercedes in early 2015 and with ART GP made a sideways move to GP3 (now known as FIA F3), where he won the title and earned a 2016 graduation to the DTM with the team before joining Wehrlein at Manor later in the year.

That first move highlighted that ART GP’s GP2 seats for 2015 were already unavailable. McLaren junior Stoffel Vandoorne had one, and a partnership with Honda meant the other went to its protege Nobuharu Matsushita. So would Mercedes have had to look elsewhere? And if so, where?

Top team or cheap seat? GP2 was a no-go for Verstappen

With Verstappen’s talent and Mercedes’ backing, a seat would surely have been identified. But would he have had the equipment to defeat the dominant Vandoorne in a battle of the Belgian-born stars?

In any case, it is unlikely that Mercedes would have promoted him to F1 even for 2016 with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg dominating the previous two seasons. Would he have been farmed out to Manor, F1’s de facto backmarker team?

Though a seat there would hardly have matched the Verstappens’ expectations, he would have then been in an ideal position to be drafted into the Mercedes line-up after Rosberg’s surprise retirement at the end of the year.

Had Wolff known that Rosberg was going to retire at the end of 2016 would he have acted differently?

“Well, maybe, but if I would know where the stock market is next year, I would decide to invest in it or not. We would be very happy and rich people if we would know what happens in 12 months,” he said on Beyond The Grid.

He also told ESPN that while he “certainly” regretted missing out on having Verstappen in the Mercedes fold, “it wasn’t an option back in the day”.

For their part, neither Jos nor Max expressed any regret at turning down Mercedes, despite the team’s dominance from 2015 to 2020.

Red Bull had alternatives it could have presented Verstappen in 2015, both in and out of F1. In GP2, DAMS fielded one of its juniors, Pierre Gasly, alongside 2014 GP3 champion and Williams’ new development driver Alex Lynn.

Perhaps realising that Verstappen’s fast-track promotion meant his chances of progressing to F1 with Red Bull were rapidly evaporating, Lynn had left the RBJT by mutual agreement at the end of 2014.

Photos: Philip Platzer/Red Bull Content Pool

The alternative to GP2 in Europe was FR3.5, and Verstappen had tested a car in torrential rain at the Red Bull Ring on his first day as a Red Bull junior. Furthermore, that series was a proven step between F3 and F1 for Red Bull juniors, examples being Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo.

Carlos Sainz Jr, another Red Bull junior, was 2014 FR3.5 champion with DAMS and Arden’s Gasly was a distant runner-up. They were two of the four contenders to be Verstappen’s Toro Rosso team-mate in 2015, and Sainz was the chosen one.

The risk for Verstappen, as father Jos understood very well, was that today’s hot prospect can very quickly go cold if the results don’t follow. Although it was Verstappen’s rapid rise that prompted, although the FIA would never admit it, the creation of the superlicence points system that tied drivers down to multiple years in junior series before being eligible for F1.

In 2015, Verstappen noted that Ferrari junior Raffaele Marciello had swept to the 2013 European F3 title then took one win in three GP2 seasons, and as far as single-seaters was concerned his star had faded. He didn’t want GP2 to stall his own career.

With no F1 drive potentially on offer, would Jos Verstappen have held off for another year in a junior series, hoping to reel in the top teams with another sensational performance?

That seems unlikely, as the Verstappens were already struggling to finance their F3 campaign without the inflow of Red Bull cash mid-season. A second season there would have been completely out of the question for the impatient Verstappens.

“I think we see now there’s a perfect match between Helmut and the family of Verstappen. They fit together,” concludes van Amersfoort.

“I knew that there was contact also with Toto but, you know, Mercedes is just more careful and the Verstappens don’t know what ‘careful’ is. They go for it and I think that the characters fit together perfectly and we see it now.

• Read more: Verstappen’s explosive arrival in single-seaters – the first time around

“Jos can really be a pain in the arse for the team but, whatever, he’s full throttle all the time. And as a team you have to cope with it. For sure, we learned a lot in that year,” he adds.

“To be the top you have to be special, and for sure Max was.”

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