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: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Reigning Formula 2 champion Leonardo Fornaroli has earned a reserve driver role at the McLaren Formula 1 team for the year ahead.

The 21-year-old Italian was signed to the McLaren Driver Development Programme two months ago, shortly after clinching the F2 title with a round to spare as a rookie. It marked the first time he had been affiliated to an F1 team.

Fornaroli won the FIA Formula 3 Championship in 2024, but the first four years of his single-seater career featured only one win and three poles from 96 races across ADAC and Italian Formula 4, Formula Regional Asia and Europe, and then FIA F3.

He said he was “thrilled to be stepping into an extended role” with McLaren, calling it “an exciting next step in my journey, and I’m looking forward to contributing to such a successful, championship-winning team this season.”

Winning the F2 title automatically earns a driver the FIA superlicence required to race in F1, and despite a total lack of test mileage in F1 machinery it will be Fornaroli who will be on call-up for McLaren since he is without a race programme while fellow reserve driver Pato O’Ward will be aiming for the 2026 IndyCar title as one of McLaren’s drivers in that championship.

Another F2 champion waiting for his chance to race in F1 is Felipe Drugovich, although for 2026 he has taken up a seat in Formula E with Andretti Global after serving as one of the Aston Martin F1 team’s reserve drivers since September 2022.

It was reported last year that several of his free practice outings with the team did not actually count as having a rookie driver in the car, since they were not registered as such in advance of them taking place. Each team is obliged to run drivers with no more than two F1 starts to their name in practice four times each season. Not all teams met this rule in 2025.

Drugovich has driven in seven F1 practice sessions to date, has now left Aston Martin and is five races into his FE career.

His personal information that was held by the FIA was at risk of being accessed publicly last year due to a breach in the website that stored driver biographies. Once the security issue was reported on, the FIA fixed it and contacted the drivers whose data had been accessed.

Meanwhile Kush Maini will remain on the reserve driver roster of Alpine’s F1 team for 2026. His failure to secure a superlicence in his third F2 season last year, during which time he was actually one of Alpine’s reserve drivers, led to him deciding last October to return to the Mahindra FE team to fulfil the reserve role for them instead through 2026.

He had previously held the position in 2024, but left it to take on the same position at Alpine. He will now juggle both, but his primary focus is F2 as he joins ART Grand Prix‘s line-up.

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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: Audi

Sauber’s 2026 rebrand to Audi, which owns the Switzerland-based Formula 1 team, has led to it having a new driver development programme.

From 1993 to 2005 the team ran under the name of its founder Peter Sauber, then competed as BMW Sauber from 2006 to 2010 due to a technical alliance. It later competed as Alfao Romeo, the Italian automobile manufacturer, from 2019 to 2023.

Sauber launched its own junior team in 2019, initially in partnership with Formula 2 team Charouz Racing System, and a karting squad was formed. Both were inactive when 2025 began, but Sauber was still obliged to brand a car in the all-female Formula 4 championship F1 Academy, so supported Rodin Motorsport driver Emma Felbermayr’s entry.

Audi first competed in single-seaters’ top tier F1 existed, then raced in Formula E with the German automobile manufacturer’s factory team Abt Sportsline from 2014 to 2021.

A driver development programme was launched in 2016, with the end goal for its proteges to become Audi factory drivers and to race its touring cars in the DTM, GT cars in international sportscar racing and LMP1 prototypes in the World Endurance Championship. It had already been backing young drivers and bringing them into the DTM for many years.

For its single-seater return, the Audi Driver Development Programme has been created and Allan McNishwill be director. He raced in F1 for Toyota, but is best known for winning the Le Mans 24 Hours twice, taking three American Le Mans Series titles and being crowned 2013 World Endurance champion with Audi.

The ADDP was publicly launched last week, but McNish’s work on it began before that as Audi scaled up its preparations for 2026. He was already consulting Audi on its entry into F1.

“To be entrusted with finding the cornerstones of the future Audi F1 Team is a great honour and a responsibility I am very passionate about,” said McNish.

“We are not just looking for raw speed; we are looking for the resilience, intelligence, and team-driven mindset that defines a future Audi champion. Our goal is to build a pathway that turns potential into precision and performance on the world stage.”

Audi’s F1 team principal Jonathan Wheatley noted that “the ADDP is a clear statement of our long-term commitment to youth and our ambition to be competitive” through to 2030 when it aims to win the F1 world championship.

The ADDP’s first member is Freddie Slater, who currently sits second in Formula Regional Oceania.

He was 2024 Italian F4 and UAE4 champion, and in 2025 made the podium on his FIA Formula 3 Championship debut, was FRegional Europe champion and FRegional Middle East runner-up. His primary programme for 2026 is FIA F3 with Trident.

“It’s an incredible honour to be the first driver selected for the ADDP. Audi is a brand with a legendary motorsport history, and to have their trust and support at this crucial stage of my career is a dream come true,” said the 17-year-old Englishman.

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Photo: Williams Racing

Luke Browning will graduate from Formula 2 to a race seat in Super Formula and reserve driver role in Formula 1 this year.

The 23-year-old Englishman will make his debut at single-seaters’ top level with Kondo Racing, and be Williams’ go-to driver in F1 should either of its full-time drivers be unable to race.

He will also be involved in the team’s car development through simulator work, but Browning’s 12-race SF campaign in Japan means he will not be able to fulfil his reserve driver duties in at least four grands prix.

The Williams Driver Academy has featured Browning in its ranks since April 2023, and under its tutelage he has won the Macau Grand Prix, come third in the FIA Formula 3 Championship and fourth in F2.

His first F1 test mileage came with rival team Aston Martin in October 2023 after he won the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award the preceding year, then he sampled contemporary F1 machinery for the first time at Yas Marina Circuit in December 2024 when he drove for Williams in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix’s first practice session then in the post-season young driver test.

Last year Williams handed him further free practice outings at the Bahrain, Mexico City and Abu Dhabi grands prix, and he featured in the young driver test again.

“I’m incredibly excited to be stepping up as reserve driver with Williams this year,” said Browning. “The Academy has been instrumental in my growth, supporting me through both F3 and F2 while giving me the chance to get up to speed with modern F1 machinery through testing and FP1 sessions.”

He added: “[SF] will be a completely new challenge, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in! As my next step up towards a full-time F1 seat, this gives me another chance to show how I’ve developed on track and continue to build my skills in a new environment and culture.”

Williams’ team principal James Vowles applauded how Browning has already “supported the team’s journey back to the front of the grid through his involvement in simulator and FP1 work, which has been invaluable as we enter this new era of regulations”.

Accompanying the announcement of Browning’s 2026 programme was the list of Williams’ current academy members, which revealed the departures of Japanese karter Sara Matsui.

Dean Hoogendoorn, who has been a Williams junior since August 2024, is still only 13 years old and has been signed by kart manufacturer Parolin as one of its factory drivers for 2026.

Last year the Dutchman raced for Prema, better known for its junior single-seater success, and he was ranked as one of Formula Scout’s top karting stars of 2025. He won the CIK-FIA European Championship, the WSK Super Master Series, came third in the CIK-FIA World Championship and fifth in Champions of the Future on OK Junior karts, won SuperKarts USA’s SuperNationals on X30 Junior karts and came third in the equivalent race for KA100 Junior karts.

The post Luke Browning lands F1 reserve driver role and Super Formula seat appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Victor Martins has secured two major contracts for his services as a driver this year, with Formula 1 rivals Alpine and Williams.

He will race in prototype sportscar racing’s top tier by joining Alpine’s team in the World Endurance Championship’s hypercar class, and Williams has promoted him from junior driver status to being an F1 test and development driver.

The 24-year-old Frenchman was an Alpine Academy member from 2018 to 2019, when it was the Renault Sport Academy, then was dropped for a year before earning his spot back by becoming 2020 Formula Renault Eurocup champion.

He spent four years as an Alpine F1 junior during his second spell in the driver development programme, and also co-launched the Victory Lane team to run drivers in karting and support their development in single-seaters.

Martins won the 2022 FIA Formula 3 Championship, and spent the next three years racing in Formula 2 with ART Grand Prix and testing in F1 and Formula E. His rookie F2 campaign was his best, coming fifth in the points with nine podiums.

In late 2024 he was called up by Alpine’s WEC team (which is operated by Signatech) to test its A424 hypercar, and in early 2025 left the brand’s F1 team as he was overlooked for a contracted role such as reserve driver.

By March he had joined Williams’ driver development programme, and went on to conduct several F1 tests and drive in free practice at the Spanish Grand Prix.

His Williams role is also occupied by British drivers Oliver Turvey and Harrison Scott. Turvey raced in FE for NIO from 2015 to 2022, then became reserve driver sporting advisor for the rival DS Penske team.

Scott, now 29, was 2017 Euroformula champion and eighth in USF Pro 2000 the year after as a part-timer before his racing career ended. Williams employed him as a simulator driver in 2022, and last October he made his F1 test debut at Bahrain.

Also graduating from junior single-seaters to racing hypercars in 2026 is Kaylen Frederick, who has joined JDC–Miller MotorSports to drive in its Porsche 963 for IMSA’s five Endurance Cup rounds. He debuts in next weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours.

The 23-year-old American was 2020 GB3 (nee BRDC British F3) champion, spent three years in FIA F3 then made a sideways move to Super Formula Lights. He took two wins, six other podiums and came fifth in the standings twice in Japan.

Ed Pearson will remain with Nielsen Racing this year as he switches from Euroformula to prototype sportscars’ second-tier LMP2 class in the European Le Mans Series.

Now 19, the Briton came 12th in British Formula 4 in 2022 as a single-seater rookie then 19th in GB3 with two podiums the following year. His sophomore campaign was worse, but when he stepped up to Euroformula last year he won on debut and came fifth in the third-tier championship with two victories and six podiums.

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Photo: Williams F1 Team

Italian Formula 4 champion Kean Nakamura-Berta has joined the Williams Formula 1 team’s driver academy as he moves up to Formula Regional for 2026.

The London-born Japanese-Slovak driver was previously tied to the Alpine Academy from 2022 until 2024, which was his first full year in single-seater racing after an impressive karting career including World and European titles.

He finished runner-up to Freddie Slater in the United Arab Emirates Formula 4 championship and came sixth in Italian F4 and third in E4 in 2024, but was not retained on Alpine’s books.

Nakamura-Berta did stay part of Prema’s F4 line-up for 2025 and went on to win the title with nine wins and eight other podiums from 20 races. He also added the E4 crown, taking four wins and four other podiums from the nine races.

Williams has confirmed that Nakamura-Berta will contest both the Middle East and European championships in FRegional this year, although his team has not been named.

“We’re thrilled to have Kean join the Williams F1 Team Driver Academy at this key moment in his career,” said Williams sporting director Sven Smeets.

“He has shown a lot of promise, proving that he is capable of learning, adapting and ultimately winning championships. We look forward to working with him this year and will watch keenly as he hits the track.”

Nakamura-Berta added: “I’m very excited to be joining the Williams F1 Team Driver Academy this year. It’s a team that has achieved so much and has a vast history, and I’m proud to be part of it.

“Racing in Formula Regional will be a new challenge but one that I’m especially looking forward to. Thank you to everyone at Williams for believing in me, and I can’t wait to start this new chapter!”

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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: McLaren

Leonardo Fornaroli and Richard Verschoor have revealed how they joined the McLaren Driver Development Programme.

McLaren announced their arrivals earlier this month, after rookie Fornaroli was crowned Formula 2 champion in Qatar.

Verschoor, who ended his fifth F2 season third in the standings, will switch to sportscars in the European Le Mans Series’ LMP2 prototype class next year while Fornaroli says his “programme will be announced soon” although Mclaren were “still finalising the details” in mid-December.

“I chose McLaren because it was the best choice for my career and also it provides a very nice racing programme and developing programme,” said Fornaroli.

He added to Formula Scout: “We started talking after Baku [in late September]. We also discussed with other teams, and I really appreciate the interest and efforts from the other teams. It was a completely new and humbling experience, for me seeing all this interest. But McLaren was the best choice, and we closed the deal when we were in Qatar.”

Since McLaren’s Formula 1 drivers have contracts to 2027, and finished one-two in this year’s championship, Fornaroli was asked if he would pursue a seat elsewhere to graduate to F1. He sidestepped that in his response, saying “putting all of that work in [myself going forward] is the best chance” of reaching F1.

When Formula Scout asked if McLaren would financially support a racing programme, Fornaroli said “I prefer to not answer this”, but referred in another answer to other support already received.

“I had a chat with Andrea [Stella, team principal], and the best thing he told me is that when I’m doing something both inside and outside the track, always put a goal in your mind. Because it’s like this: you’re going to achieve a great result and they’re your own goals.” 

Verschoor is “very proud to be” with McLaren, and before his ELMS programme was revealed said his 2026 plans would “be decided by them”.

“There’s many opportunities within McLaren where first of all I can develop myself as a driver,” beamed Verschoor.

“I’m able to work with all the engineers that work there from multiple categories. Which for sure I can learn a lot from. Not only that, I think the whole package is there within McLaren where I can take use of.”

Verschoor first talked to McLaren in April: “After a race in Jeddah that I won, I decided to walk to [Mclaren’s chief executive officer] Zak Brown, and that’s when things kind of kickstarted. I’m not sure if that helped in the end. I think it did. Because at that time, we didn’t get to a point where we could work together.

“But then later on in the year, around Baku, is when things and the contact was there again. And from thereon we started speaking. They spoke that they would like to consider me as their driver. And to be honest it was quite late that I signed the contract. Just before [Qatar]. It was a nerve-wracking few months, but very happy.”

The post Fornaroli and Verschoor reveal timeline of how they joined McLaren appeared first on Formula Scout.

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.

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