Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024 Archives - Formula Scout

Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 10-1

Formula Scout — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 17:40:21 +0000

Here is the final part of our annual countdown of the top 50 junior single-seater drivers through 2024

10. Andrea Kimi Antonelli

Down 9 • Prema’s reliability issues restricted the ability to show his brilliance

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Prema underperformed in Formula 2 this year, although engine issues was a big contributor towards that mid-season, and the team relied on its highly feted rookie to be a threat in feature races.

Antonelli did not let the fact that he was a rookie, and that for a portion of the year he had to keep his 2025 promotion to Formula 1 with Mercedes-AMG secret, distract him and seems far wiser than the 18 years old he actually is. In fact, he was more mature this year than his F1 team boss.

In terms of pace, Antonelli was one of the best in the field and the most consistent too. His average race pace across the season was the fourth best in the field, and that was key on weekends when Prema totally lacked pace. At Bahrain and Barcelona the team could only score one point, and Antonelli was the one who delivered both times.

Antonelli won the qualifying fight against his team-mate nine to five, and he was the sixth fastest driver in the field on single-lap pace. He also led the fourth most laps of anyone, and had the sixth-highest tally for feature races. At Silverstone he claimed his first podium, a sprint race win with fastest lap, and in the next round at the Hungaroring won the feature race from seventh on the grid. At that point he was still 17 years old.

The withdrawal from the final round after practice under doctor’s orders cost Antonelli a shot at improving those averages and his championship position.

In contrast, earlier in the season at Monza – when the FIA was yet to introduce a doctor-led concussion procedure in its sporting code – Antonelli was cleared to compete following Mercedes-organised medical examinations following a 52G shunt in F1 practice. After a turn one crash in F2’s sprint race, he put in a great drive to finish the feature race in fourth. A weekend like that, which exposed Prema’s ongoing issues with the new F2 car, could’ve left Antonelli’s head shaken up mentally as well as literally but he stayed as calm as ever.

9. Gabriele Mini

Up 6 • A few missed opportunities prevented F3 title success

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Mini just beat his compatriot and FIA Formula 3 title rival Leonardo Fornaroli in the win stakes – unbeatable in the Monaco qualifying and feature race for the second year in succession in another demonstration of his innate talent – but could not match his consistency and fell one corner short of winning the championship.

The Sicilian did all that he really could in that final race, finishing second ahead of his rival before he was disqualified post-race, but there had been too many missed opportunities during the year. Although Mini was the third-quickest driver on one-lap pace there were some disappointing qualifying results, notably 15th at Barcelona and 13th at the Hungaroring – which both triggered points-free weekends – and 11th at Spa-Francorchamps.

The fact he qualified next to Prema team-mate Dino Beganovic on all three occasions suggests a more fundamental Prema issue at those circuits – although Arvid Lindblad did make the front row and go on to win in Spain.

Soon after the disappointment of Monza, Mini would go on to shine on a street circuit once more when he was called up by Prema for his F2 debut in Baku in place of Ollie Bearman, qualifying eighth and holding third place throughout the sprint race. The team is placing its trust in him to lead it back to top form in the series next year.

8. Rafael Camara

Up 31 • Consummately claimed FREC crown in second season

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Camara finally had the opportunity to step out of the shadow of former team-mate Antonelli, and grasped it with both hands. The Ferrari junior exuded confidence in his sophomore Formula Regional Europe season, and the convincing way he marched to the title added consistency to his undoubted speed.

His category experience paid off as he romped away from the pack with four wins and two seconds in the opening six races. In truth, the title was in his pocket from early June, and so it proved. Prema again provided the right tools, and Camara was close to flawless in his execution.

He won again at Paul Ricard and Imola to maintain his points advantage before a rare off-weekend at the Red Bull Ring where he had his only two non-scores of the year.

Fittingly, he rounded off the year by taking win number seven in the season finale and beating Antonelli’s 2023 points tally.

Camara’s ability to judge traffic and conditions to pull out a fast qualifying lap – he was the only driver never to qualify outside of the first four rows – will serve him well in the time-pressured sessions of FIA F3, as he leaves Prema after three years with them for Italian rivals Trident.

7. Luke Browning

Up 13 • Statistical quirks made for odd F3 title attack before F2 outings

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Browning was out of the points in only two out of 10 FIA F3 feature races, and his points tally in those was only eight short of the champion’s. But he only scored 11 points in sprint races (a conversion rate of 10% of the points available) and that’s what truly let him down in the title fight.

On single-lap pace he was the second best, again only being bettered by the champion and leading to having the second highest average starting position. But his average finishing position was outside of the top 10, where points are issued, and only the seventh best in the field. Yet he remained a title contender to the very end.

Swinging it back the other way, Browning was consistent like few others as one of the five series regulars to be classified finishers in every race they contested, and led 58 laps. That was all in the higher-scoring feature races, and while it only translated into two wins (a tally nobody else bettered) it was more than twice as many laps as the next best, 3.6 times as many as the champion and equated to 27% of all green-flag laps in those races across the season.

Browning’s race pace may have only been the fastest in the field in one race, but taking all races into account then he was on average the driver who was closest to extracting the maximum over a prolonged run of laps.

The statistical quirks that made Browning’s F3 season with Hitech GP tricky to assess were not present when he then stepped up to F2 with ART Grand Prix, where on new circuits he took two top-seven finishes from his six races. He returns to Hitech for a full F2 campaign in 2025.

6. Leonardo Fornaroli

Re-entry • Paradoxical route to becoming F3 champion deserves praise

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

In the history of junior single-seaters, there are only six notable examples of drivers in series for contemporary machinery (and are not just two rounds long) becoming champion without winning a race. Fornaroli’s 2024 FIA F3 title is the sixth in that list, and means he is now on a 91-race win-free streak and has made it to F2 with only one win in his car racing career.

All sounds rather damning, particularly since 12 drivers spent more laps in the lead and seven spent more laps in podium positions than him this year, but what matters is where you are at the chequered flag. Fornaroli took home seven trophies for making the podium, two more than anyone else, and the average position he ended races in was two places higher than the next-best driver. Not only that, he also had the highest average starting position.

There were two pole positions, although he was only the fastest driver at one circuit, contributing to Fornaroli being the best driver on single-lap pace across the season, and at half of the rounds he was the quickest of the title contenders.

His 24th place starting spot at the Red Bull Ring made the standard deviation in his qualifying averages 6.75 positions. Omit that result, in which he was still within a second of the pace, and it would have been an incredibly consistent 1.94 places – the kind of figure that’s so difficult for a driver at the front of the field to achieve.

Fornaroli had the third-best rolling race pace average across the season, but should’ve been second due to an anomalous standard set by a driver in clean air at the back of the pack, and had a comfortable title-winning margin of 23 points even though the battle for the crown went down to the final race.

Trident has now run the F3 champion two years in a row, and both had unconventional routes to the crown with little time actually spent leading the pack. Fornaroli emulates 2023 champion Gabriel Bortoleto by joining Invicta Racing in F2 for 2025.

5. Freddie Slater

New entry • F4’s benchmark driver was close to being a triple champion

Photo: ACI Sport

Slater was the best driver in Formula 4 worldwide in 2024. His performances in Europe and Macau at the end of 2023 had marked him out as the title favourite this year in Italian F4, which remains the category’s blue-riband championship, but he was up against a strong field of sophomores and an exciting intake of top karting graduates.

He started his year in Formula 4 United Arab Emirates, and won the title, to get fully “prepped” (to use his favourite term) for his primary campaign in Italy. From the off there he was close to unstoppable: a hat-trick at Misano, the first of three such weekends, laid down a marker.

Slater was usually out front but showed his racecraft when required to fight his way through to the lead. He exudes confidence, without overstepping the fine line to arrogance, and is not short of determination or ambition. He is not afraid to have a go, something he showed when he stepped up to FRegional for the Macau Grand Prix and made a brave but failed late-braking dive for third in the main race. His second attempt at making a move put him in the barriers.

Once the Italian F4 title was in the bag, Slater still had Antonelli’s record for 13 wins in a season to target and he surpassed it with two victories in the Monza finale. Slater had to settle for second-best in the sister E4 (nee Euro 4) series, but he had done enough to justify his reputation.

Further experience at a higher level came in GB3, where he had three top-seven finishes from three outings. It showed his ability to adapt quickly to the fourth tier of single-seaters. While GB3, and making a bigger step to FIA F3, were options for 2025 he will instead remain with Prema and head to FREC where he should start as one of the favourites.

4. Louis Foster

Up 18 • Caught IndyCar’s attention with Indy Nxt dominance

Photo: James Black

Photo: Paul Hurley

Although winning the Indy Nxt title still provides a scholarship to spend on stepping up to IndyCar, it only covers two events. You have to be super rich or super impressive to land a full-season ride, and Foster firmly ticked the latter box to earn himself a multi-year deal with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

What was key to Foster’s crushing of the opposition in Indy Nxt during his sophomore season, and why he looked ready for IndyCar, was his mastering of the oval races.

He won all four, started three from pole and he usually had an insurmountable avantage on single-lap pace. This made all the difference on circuits where usually a slower driver can live with a small pace deficit by sitting in the tow of the leader and save fuel before going for a move.

But Foster was also the driver to beat at many road and street courses, opening up his victory account on Indianapolis Motor Speeddway’s road course, navigating the tight Detroit street circuit for second successive win, then taking pole, victory and leading every lap of both races in the Laguna Seca double-header.

He finished second at Road America, Mid-Ohio and Portland, where he also claimed one of his seven poles and seven fastest laps. Away from the ovals, he led more laps than anyone else.

3. Paul Aron

Up 10 • Was very close to being F2’s fastest driver but buckled in battles

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Aron matched what he did in F4, FRegional and F3 by coming third in the F2 standings this year, and his failure to finally break his title-winning duck reflected that he still has room to improve.

The main issue that cost Aron points in his rookie F2 campaign was buckling under pressure during battles for big positions, when he was the driver in front and when behind. He claimed an unmatched four poles, and an unbeaten eight podiums, but it took until the 26th race of the season for him to win and he didn’t even lead that one as a penalty gifted him the victory.

A millimetre error with his DRS in the race that followed led to a disqualification from another podium finish, putting him out of title contention and severely damaging his shot at the championship runner-up spot as he had to start the season finale from the pitlane.

On race pace (measured as a rolling average, then represented as a percentage against the fastest average) there was a tiny gap of 0.012% between Aron and champion Bortoleto over the season, with the latter the faster thanks to Aron’s disqualification. For single-lap pace in qualifying it was even closer, as Bortoleto bettered Aron by 0.011%. One of Aron’s poles, at Spa, notably came despite having a straightline speed disadvantage.

Aron spent more time leading than Bortoleto, only scored half a point less than him in sprint races due to his disqualification, but trailed by 51 in the more important feature races. Aron has a lot to prove in F2 still, but he is yet to announce his 2025 racing plans.

2. Isack Hadjar

Re-entry • First driver in 20 years to win four F2 feature races but not title

Photo: Red Bull

Hadjar became only the 18th driver in the last 40 years of F1’s primary feeder series to win four feature/main races in a single season, but his remarkable achievement was minimised by being only the third in that time to do so without becoming champion. Particularly as only one other driver this year managed to win more than one feature race.

The maiden win for Hadjar in Australia owed much to the fortunate timing of the safety car, but he wasn’t the only title contender to be dealt a lucky win. Were it not for Zak O’Sullivan’s outrageous good fortune at Monaco, an incredulous Hadjar would’ve been victorious in the feature race there, and at Spa he was magnificent as he passed title rivals Bortoleto and Aron en route to win four of the year.

It was therefore rather a lack of consistency which ultimately cost him the title – no amount of speed can make up for failing to score in almost half of the 28 races. He was second-top scorer in feature races, but 10th in sprint races.

Stalling on the grid at Yas Marina, then charging after the field in vain, unlapping himself while repeatedly asking for the gap to Bortoleto somehow encapsulated the emotions of his year. Hadjar made a huge step up from his rookie season, working successfully with Campos Racing on improving his single-lap pace, as well as rebuilding his battered confidence.

Hadjar has never been short of passion – his radio messages are from the heart, and his exasperation when things went wrong, as they did too often, not always for reasons within his control, was palpable. His next destination is F1 with Racing Bulls, having impressed Red Bull’s management with his free practice and rookie test performances this year.

1. Gabriel Bortoleto

Up 1 • F1 teams fought for signature of F2 rookie who became champion

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Bortoleto repeated his F3 trick of becoming champion as a rookie and while spending far fewer laps at the front than his rivals. He won two feature races, and claimed an unmatched six podiums in those higher-scoring races to take the title by 22.5 points and earn himself an F1 seat with Sauber.

In the first four rounds he was twice on pole, including in his debut qualifying session but only converted one of those into a podium and was down in 12th in the standings following four non-scores (including three retirements) before he hit form.

He was up to third in the standings but 32 points off the lead at the season’s halfway point, as he took his first win in the Red Bull Ring feature race, then in the season’s second half he only finished one race outside of the top 10.

In each of the last seven races he finished in the top five, coming home in first (at Monza), second, third and fourth in the feature races, and his two fastest laps in 2024 came in the Hungaroring sprint race and Baku feature race. It showed he had strong pace at the fast and flowing tracks as well as the tight and twisty venues on the calendar.

His F1 future was secured a month before the F2 title was, with McLaren having to release their junior driver so Sauber could sign him, and Bortoleto ended the season as the benchmark driver over a single lap and on race pace, and as the top scorer in both feature and sprint races.

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 10-1 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 20-11

Formula Scout — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 17:05:05 +0000

The penultimate part of our countdown of 2024’s best junior single-seater drivers features F2 down to F4

20. Victor Martins

Down 12 • Keeping confidence was key in wait for ART GP to hit form in F2

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

The 2023 teams’ champions ART Grand Prix struggled to nail Formula 2’s new car this year and it only became a competitive packaging in the second half of the season, which left Martins without a chance of fighting for the title.

His first points only arrived in round three, but there was still a lot of ground to be recovered before he and his team were able to fight at the front of the grid again.

In Monaco, he was fastest in his qualifying group to earn a feature race front row spot, but a clutch issue dropped him to the middle of the pack and he could only finish ninth. After a month-long break he won the Barcelona sprint race comfortably, but the actual performance turnaround of his team took place at Silverstone, round eight of 14.

After that, Martins became a regular podium contender, finishing second four times. Two of those came at the Hungaroring, a reward for a tyre management masterclass in both races. His other runner-up finishes were in feature races, then he claimed pole for the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

Even though it was a challenging year and potentially one that could mark his future, Martins repeated his 2023 mindset where he remained confident while results weren’t coming and this time keeping his head high helped contribute to his team’s recovery. In the end, he was seventh in the standings and 18 points away from matching his 2023 position of fifth.

19. Dino Beganovic

Up 6 • Swede prolonged F3 title ambitions that once seemed gone before rocking F2

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Beganovic was the highest place returnee in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, so a title challenge was expected. But the season didn’t go his way.

The Ferrari junior began the year with pole, but followed that up with a puncture and a penalty for causing a crash in the sprint race then another non-score in the feature race as a gear issue dropped him to 29th on lap one. He bounced back by winning the next feature race in Melbourne, and after that said it was “not been where I want to be in terms of feeling” to be able to fight for victories as he embarked on a seven-race scoring run only two drivers bettered.

The run ended at the Red Bull Ring sprint race but he returned to the podium in the feature race, and he got another third place in the Hungaroring sprint race. Remarkably he kept himself in title contention, boosted by fending off Prema team-mate Gabriele Mini to win Spa-Francorchamps’ wet sprint race

“It’s been a tough season. It’s not been where I want to be,” Beganovic dwelled, as two points finishes in the Monza finale put him sixth in the standings. He had been fifth fastest across the season on single-lap pace and sixth on race pace, but had the third highest average finishing position of anyone.

Next, the Swede stepped down to Formula Regional to contest the Macau Grand Prix. An incident in the second qualifying session forced him to start in 15th, and over the two races he was able to recover to eighth. He then moved up to F2 with DAMS, and displayed blistering pace. He was fourth fastest in qualifying on debut at Losail, and finished the feature race in fifth. At Yas Marina Circuit he was again in the mix, just 0.161 seconds off pole, and came third and seventh in the races.

Beganovic’s race pace was on average the sixth best in the field this year, and over a single lap he was fourth fastest. He will join Hitech GP in F2 next year for a full campaign, and high pre-season expectations have been set once more.

18. Joshua Duerksen

New entry • Made the most of improving AIX Racing package in jump up to F2

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Entering F2 from FRegional Europe and doing so with AIX Racing, it could have been expected that 2024 would be a year of learning for Duerksen, but it was way more than that.

The Paraguayan was soon on the pace and the Barcelona in-season test helped him and his team to make a step forward. At Imola, he qualified fifth and went on to finish third in the feature race with a flawless drive. He struggled in Monaco, but the trend was clearly upwards and at the Red Bull Ring he took a double points finish after being 0.008s shy of pole.

There were more performance gains after the summer break and Duerksen capitalised on them with more points and podiums. After a brilliant weekend at Monza where he was third and fifth, he won the sprint race in Baku, which he followed with fifth in the feature race. He saved the best for last, winning the season-ending feature race in Abu Dhabi from eighth on the grid. He was in third place by lap three, and having stopped early he took the lead once everyone had pitted.

His results lifted him from 19th to 10th in the standings, as well as his popularity at home, and he will stay with AIX in 2025.

17. Franco Colapinto

Down 2 • Argentinian national hero learned lots as an F2 and F1 rookie

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

2024 was an eventful year for Colapinto, as he went from F2 rookie to Formula 1 points scorer and Argentinian national hero.

He struggled for one-lap pace in the first three F2 rounds, a contrast to experienced team-mate Dennis Hauger. At that point, he also felt a bit overwhelmed by the scale of support coming from his home country and wanted to pay back with results.

Colapinto and MP Motorsport worked hard at the Barcelona in-season test to understand F2’s new car and extract more pace over one lap. It paid off, as he only missed the top 10 in one of the seven qualifying sessions that followed (and made the top five in fouer of them) before his surprise step up to F1 with Williams.

His F2 race results also improved considerably once he was starting further up the order. In round four at Imola he won the sprint race from second on the reversed grid, brilliantly holding off Paul Aron. That win was a much-needed confidence boost.

He later claimed second place finishes in the feature races at Barcelona and the Red Bull Ring, and five other top-five finishes meant he came ninth in the points despite missing over a quarter of the season. On a points-per-race basis, and with MP’s improving pace, he was on course to make the championship’s top five.

16. James Wharton

New entry • Finally delivered on potential in FREC after leaving Ferrari

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Wharton’s first year since karting without the Ferrari Driver Academy’s backing was his most impressive, as he finally delivered on the potential which attracted Ferrari’s attention in the first place.

He certainly still had plenty of support, remaining in Nicolas Todt’s All Road Management stable, and racked up a lot of mileage at different circuits by racing in FRegional Middle East, FREC, the Macau GP, GB3 and FIA F3.

The step up to Formula 4 came in FRME, driving a Mumbai Falcons-branded but Prema-run car to warm up for his FREC campaign with the team. He took two podiums and sixth place in the standings, and was close to team-mate Rafael Camara.

In FREC, Wharton was fast but fragile at first. A mixture of bad luck, including a suspension breakage at Raidillon in Spa qualifying, and driver errors, such as spinning away the lead at Zandvoort, left him sixth in the points but with two poles after four rounds.

He knuckled down and took his maiden win at Mugello, which seemed to lift a weight from his shoulders. In the final four rounds he was only once off the podium and three more wins, including two at Barcelona, was enough to be championship runner-up.

Wharton was thrilled to get the chance to race at Macau, an opportunity which with ART GP, but after seventh place in the qualification race he crashed out the main race. He will race for the team in FIA F3 next year.

15. Louis Sharp

Up 22 • Hard-earned GB3 title highlighted impact of circuit experience on form

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Sharp is one of few drivers who will enter 2025 having won single-seater titles in back-to-back years.

He followed up his 2023 British F4 crown with GB3 honours in 2024, and had plenty of competition not only in the title race but also from many others in the field when fighting for podiums and wins. It made his title a hard-earned one.

The season began at Oulton Park, where Sharp claimed pole for the first two races and converted them into a victory and a second place. He said his debut success provided instant momentum since the first victory is the hardest to achieve, and he retained the points lead through round two at Silverstone despite missing the podium.

At Spa, a brand new track for Sharp, he was third twice then dropped to third in the standings after retiring from race three when a rival misjudged a double pass attempt. Sharp had been on for at least fifth place, enough to have kept him atop the points.

Sharp had a bad qualifying session at the Hungaroring, another circuit outside of Britain that was new to him, and while he could only finish seventh in race one he was able to win race two by charging into the lead from fifth on the grid in the space of a lap. Fourth place in the reversed-grid race followed, putting him back in the championship lead.

It was a similar story at Zandvoort in the Netherlands, with Sharp qualifying third, then moving up and down the order through the changing conditions of race one before settling into fourth place. He retired from race two, and seventh place in race three meant he became the chaser once more.

GB3 returned to Britain following that, and Sharp returned to being the most competitive driver in the field. Two second places at Silverstone (the first of which put him back in the points lead) were followed by two poles and two wins at Donington Park then coming just shy of a double pole at Brands Hatch. He was squeezed off track on lap one of race one but still finished seventh, won race two, then pursued his title rivals home in the finale to become champion.

Next year he stays with Rodin Motorsport as he steps up to F3, and it will be interesting to see whether circuit experience impacts his form as heavily again.

14. Tuukka Taponen

New entry • FRegional newcomer took Middle East title and won in Europe

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

After a disappointing year in F4 with Prema, the Ferrari junior joined the competitive R-ace GP team for his FRegional graduation. He got his time in the catehory off to a great start as he convincingly beat a strong field, including more experienced rivals, to take five wins, five poles and the title in FRME.

There was a solid start too in FREC, and his season came alive once he won in round three at Zandvoort. At the Hungaroring he led lights-to-flag, and set the fastest lap, in both races and won from pole again at Mugello.

Over FREC’s summer break he made his FIA F3 debut with ART GP at Spa, and looked at home in tricky conditions. He will step up to the championship full-time with the team in 2025.

Both Taponen and R-ace seemed to lose their way slightly in the second half of the FREC season, with Taponen getting involved in incidents and retiring five times. He dropped to third in the standings, and came close to ending up in fourth.

At the Macau GP he qualified 20th after a crash, then a lap one collision in the qualification race put him 26th on the grid for the FIA FRegional World Cup-awarding main race. A storming drive to 10th showed what could have been.

Still, a title in the United Arab Emirates and a hard-fought third place in Europe is a brilliant return for a FRegional rookie.

13. Zane Maloney

Up 29 • Maturity earned Barbdian fourth in F2 standings and an FE seat

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Maloney’s maturity stood out in 2024, both in F2 and with how he pursued opportunities elsewhere, and he drove with the ability to fight for the title. However he exited contention with a round to go, and skipped that final event to make his Formula E debut as a full-time driver there with Lola Yamaha Abt.

In F2 he had a Super Formula champion as a team-mate, yet scored 81% of Rodin’s points. Even taking respective levels of circuit experience into account, it was such a one-sided affair that it only further highlighted how well Maloney was driving and particularly when he did not have the fastest car underneath him.

He was the ninth-fastest driver on single-lap pace, but the fifth best in the field when it came to race pace and in the Bahrain season opener he came from eighth to win the sprint race (taking fastest lap on the way), then – having come 0.067 second short of pole – led all but the first few seconds of the feature race for a double win.

At Silverstone he was second in both races, and there were also feature race podiums in Melbourne and Monza. At the latter he took Rodin’s first F2 pole in over two years.

Two points-free weekends at the Hungaroring and in Baku, the latter down to his own errors and having tyres in worse conditions than his rivals by race-end, undid a season that should have kept Maloney on F1’s radar.

12. Deagen Fairclough

New entry • Broke records for wins, poles and podiums in British F4 domination

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Records were broken by Fairclough as he romped to the British F4 title with Hitech as a sophomore, and he also had competitive showings abroad.

His year began in F4 UAE; his first ever races outside of Britain. He qualified seventh on debut in Abu Dhabi, and after keeping that position in race one finished second in the reversed-grid race two. A fourth place followed to sit fourth in the points.

However he struggled in qualifying at round two there, and had to charge up the order to finish seventh in race one. A clash in race two cost him another top-10 result as he got a penalty and had to pit, but that was a rare instance of Fairclough not getting it right in battle this year. There was a far more impressive rise to fourth in race three.

He escaped two big crashes at Dubai Autodrome, leaving the weekend with no points, but he returned to form in the final race of round four in Abu Dhabi and that continued into the finale where he rose back up to seventh in the standings.

While the results were not headline-grabbing, it was all crucial learning that was applied upon the return to Britain. Qualifying was crucial to avoiding being caught in scraps for position that could prove race-ending, and Fairclough took 15 poles out of 20. All but two were converted into victories, and in the season-opening race at Donington Park he won from third on the grid.

In the reversed-grid fixtures, Fairclough only once retired and had a net gain of 42 positions from where he started even when taking his non-finish (where he lost of the equivalent of 11 places) into account. Those races also contributed to his fastest lap tally of 19, and sum of 22 podiums from 30 races. Whenever wet weather hit, Fairclough was also fantastic.

11. Arvid Lindblad

Up 12 • Red Bull protege won in FRegional and F3 in charge up the ladder

Photo: Red Bull

Lindblad has Red Bull’s faith and backing like no other driver has since Max Verstappen entered F1, and while 2024 absolutely proved why he is a very exciting talent it was not a spellbinding year for the F4 graduate.

Prema ran the Anglo-Swede in FRME and then F3, and it took just two races for Lindblad to become a FRegional winner. But that came in a reversed-grid race, having qualified 15th. Finishing eighth in race three meant he left Abu Dhabi fourth in the standings, but qualifying put him on the back foot again through rounds two and three. He made no further outings, and fell to 13th in the points by season-end.

In F3 it took one race for Lindblad to win. He qualified ninth at Bahrain, putting him fourth on the reversed grid, and after initially dropping to fifth worked his way to the front. He took the lead with less than four laps to go, then built a 5.478s gap. Afterwards he said he “wasn’t too worried” about tyre degradation, and that the result gave him “a lot of confidence” against high level opposition.

Eighth place in the feature race followed, then in Melbourne he benefited from the reversed grid having qualified eighth. He was sprint race runner-up, but non-scored through lack of pace late on in the feature race. At Imola his qualifying form improved, going fourth fastest and beating his team-mates, which was converted into two points scores although he again faded late in the feature race.

Lindblad was 0.019s shy of the feature race front row in Monaco, and carefully held his fourth place throughout after contributing to a sprint race pile-up. Despite his deficiencies, the then-16-year-old was more consistent than most and sat fifth in the standings. So when he finally hit form, Lindblad looked like a de facto title contender.

At Barcelona he missed pole by 0.036s then was faultless as he dominated the feature race, was 0.084s off feature race pole at the Red Bull Ring but dropped from second to seventh as fading race pace remained an issue, then at a wet Silverstone qualified outside of the top 10 but had the speed to be at the front. He dominated the sprint race, and won a tricky feature race in changing conditions.

There were no more points for Lindblad after that though, being far off the pace and having a crash at the Hungaroring, spinning a team-mate and being off the pace at Spa and rising up the order but to no higher than 12th at Monza after qualifying badly once more. Next year he steps back down to FRegional to race in New Zealand as a winter warm-up for a step up to F2 with Campos Racing.

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 20-11 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 30-21

Formula Scout — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 18:52:38 +0000

Find who made the middle part of our countdown of the best 50 junior single-seater drivers of 2024

30. Lochie Hughes

New entry • USF Pro 2000 title run earned scholarship for Andretti Indy Nxt ride

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

The 22-year-old Hughes used maturity and consistency to become the 2024 USF Pro 2000 champion with Turn 3 Motorsport. And while he did take two poles, a win and a second place in the opening round, that didn’t actually set up his title charge.

At NOLA Motorsports Park he only had one top-10 finish from three races, and the winning form of Nikita Johnson and Hunter Yeany stole the headlines. But Hughes then went on a seven-race run of podiums, including winning all three races at Road America and making the podium in the Freedom 90 oval race which awarded additional points.

Yeany had dropped off the grid by then, and Hughes was now points leader by a big margin. Therefore he just had to be competitive and clean in the remaining rounds to ensure he became champion.

A fourth and a seventh place at Mid-Ohio was followed by a fifth place and a win on the streets of Toronto, where being mistake-free proved critical for strong results and was where Johnson fell short.

To round out the season, Hughes finished sixth and second in the two races at Portland and earned himself a scholarship to step up to Indy Nxt in 2025. He will make the move with the Andretti Global team.

Although Johnson won more races than Hughes, it was the latter who had the highest average starting and finishing position over the course of the season and made him a deserving champion.

29. Mattia Colnaghi

New entry • Car racing rookie snatched Spanish F4 crown

Photo: Spanish F4

Colnaghi earned his seat in Spanish F4 with MP Motorsport by winning the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy shootout in 2023.

To warm up for the championship, which had an average grid size of 35 cars this year, Colnaghi got some crucial first racing miles in by doing the first two rounds of Spain’s Formula Winter Series for F4 cars. Two seventh places were his best results, and it put him 18th in the standings.

Those two circuits, Jerez and Barcelona, did not appear on the Spanish F4 schedule until the end of the campaign and so Colnaghi still had a lot of learning to do through most of 2024.

But in round one at Jarama he claimed a pole position, made the podium at Algarve next time out, then turned two poles into two dominant wins at Paul Ricard. He finished fifth in race three, and was now the main rival to team-mate Keanu Al Azhari in the standings but over 40 points behind.

They were both outshone by Maciej Gladysz at Motorland Aragon, then by Juan Cota at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit, but Colnaghi’s two podiums at the latter venue reduced the points gap. Then came the two tracks Colnaghi had already raced on, and the difference that made was remarkable.

At Jerez he took two wins and a third place to reduce the gap to Al Azhari to 13 points. Then pole and another two wins at Barcelona meant he snatched the lead ahead of the decisive race. He finished it behind his rival, but did enough to deny him the title and be the top rookie in the field by almost 100 points.

Colnaghi then made his Formula Regional debut with MP in the Macau Grand Prix, qualifying 14th and taking that position in the main race too despite crashing.

28. Jak Crawford

Re-entry • Sophomore was stronger in F2 with racey DAMS package

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Crawford scored more than twice as many points in his sophomore Formula 2 season than he did as a rookie, and jumped from 13th to fifth in the standings.

The key difference with his 2024 campaign was he switched his reliance for points from sprint races to feature races, but was only half a point off being the joint-highest scorer in the former still.

There were no pole positions, unlike in 2023, as Crawford underperformed in qualifying (being the 15th fastest driver on absolute pace across the season) but usually made up for it in races and only suffered one retirement before the final two rounds in the Middle East. Only one driver had finished more races than him up to that point.

Crawford’s sole win of the year came in the Barcelona feature race, which he started from second place on the grid, and that was one of three races he led. The 19-year-old was actually rarely at the front, but the set-up direction at DAMS gave him a car with some of the best race pace in the field.

This was clear at Silverstone, where he came from seventh on the grid to win the feature race on the road before a penalty for an unsafe release from his pit-stop demoted him to third. He called it “one of the best races I’ve had” and it was one of 20 races this year out of 28 where he retained or moved up from his starting position in the race.

That he started seven races from 20th or lower though explains why he can’t feature any higher in this ranking, even taking DAMS’ race-favouring set-ups into account.

27. Alessandro Giusti

Up 7 • Williams junior was a winner again in FREC

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Having moved to ART Grand Prix from G4 Racing, where he had won three times as a rookie in 2023, much was expected of Giusti in his sophomore year in Formula Regional Europe. The French team was looking to return to its previous successes, having endured a torrid 2023.

Ahead of the season, Giusti was signed up by the Williams Driver Academy which provided additional support both on and off track.

As Rafael Camara hit the ground running to build up an unassailable points lead, it took Giusti some time to find his feet, with team-mate Evan Giltaire looking ready to usurp his predecessor as French F4 champion.

Giusti scored two podiums at Zandvoort but it wasn’t until the last race before the summer break, on home ground at Paul Ricard, that his season really took off.

He was superb in wet conditions in the south of France, scene of his maiden triumph a year earlier, passing Camara for the lead and sailing to victory. He followed it up with a second win, again in the rain, at Imola as he closed the points gap to the top three.

Unfortunately, a red flag in the Monza finale curtailed his chase of leader Camara and prevented him overhauling Taponen for third in the standings.

Ultimately, fourth was a disappointing outcome for a race-winning sophomore in a field largely comprising category rookies. Nevertheless, his pace is clear, and his 2024 results underlined his wet weather car control. He moves up to FIA Formula 3 with MP Motorsport with the potential to win races.

26. Caio Collet

Re-entry • F3 stalwart established himself well in Indy Nxt

Photo: Justin Walsh

Photo: Travis Hinkle

Following three wins from three seasons in FIA F3, Collet stepped up to single-seaters’ second tier by moving to Indy Nxt with HMD Motorsports.

In the same way that the champion had a big margin to second place, who in turn had a big margin to Collet, the Brazilian too was comfortably better than anyone else over the course of the campaign. He secured third in the standings, and rookie-of-the-year honours, by 104 points as his nearest rival scored only three quarters of the points that he did.

Like most drivers coming over from the European racing scene, Collet had no oval experience to cite before he raced on one for the first time in Indy Nxt and his inexperience of those circuits and that type of racing showed. However there was a clear improvement curve, as with his season as a whole, and he concluded the year at Nashville Superspeedway with a third place.

The highlight was undoubtedly Mid-Ohio though, where he converted his maiden pole into a lights-to-flag win, accompanied by the point for fastest lap too. He did take a fastest lap at Iowa Speedway too, but in somewhat unique circumstances since he crashed out early and the pace in the tow was at its highest in the laps before tyre blistering became a concern.

Collet will remain with HMD in Indy Nxt for 2025, and have the same engineer. One track he already has extra experience of is Portland, as his role as Nissan’s reserve driver in Formula E led to him being called up for the championship’s races there this June.

25. Brando Badoer

New entry • String of FREC podiums led to full faith of McLaren

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Badoer stood on the Formula Regional Europe podium seven times, but somehow failed to ever reach the top step. He was a model of consistency, regularly challenging at the front but never quite able to clock up a maiden win – not just in FREC but since he started racing cars in 2022.

Tenth place in Formula Regional Middle East for PHM Racing gave little indication of his potential but back in the fold at Van Amersfoort Racing, his European home since graduating from karts, he gained in confidence, leading the team’s strong all-rookie line-up.

He scored points in 15 of 20 races, including five consecutive second-places mid-season, to take fifth in the standings.

His single lap pace was strong too, beaten only by series benchmark Rafael Camara in season average qualifying times, and taking a maiden pole at Mugello.

Clearly, his performances had done enough to impress McLaren, which exercised the option it signed on him last year to make him a full member of its driver development programme, and Prema, which has recruited him to its FIA F3 squad for 2025 as he moves away from VAR. Surely a first win in single-seaters can’t be too far off.

24. Richard Verschoor

Up 9 • F2 veteran enjoyed his best season yet

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

This may have been Verschoor’s fourth F2 season, and he was only eighth in the standings, but it was also his best and without two disqualifications he would have made the top five in the points.

He led more laps than anyone else in 2024, had the fifth highest feature race points tally and would have matched the champion’s haul of eight podiums from the year had he not been stripped of his sprint race victory at Jeddah for using an “incorrect throttle pedal progressivity map” and being removed from the results of the Hungaroring sprint race due to having a rear plank “below the minimum thickness required” after finishing first on the road.

Verschoor didn’t lose faith in his Trident team’s ability with the championship’s new Dallara F2 2024 car, and they finally took a win that counted in Baku as Verschoor took pole and was victorious in the feature race. However the opportunity to switch to MP for the final two rounds then arose, and the Dutchman snapped it up as quickly as he could.

The outcome from that decision was two podiums and two fastest laps from the final four races, and rising up the points table. He quickly committed to a full-season deal for 2025 with the team too, with his head currently held very high.

23. Oliver Goethe

Re-entry • F2 and Macau cameos made up for any F3 disappointment

Photo: Red Bull

Goethe was one of several drivers this year who used appearances in F2 to boost their profile after not quite hitting targets in their primary programme.

For the Red Bull junior it was FIA F3 where he spent most of his time, contesting all but the final round and scoring 94 points to come seventh in the standings with Campos Racing.

He charged to victory in the Imola sprint race then to second in the feature, setting the fastest lap in both, and he also made the podium in the Barcelona sprint race during a 12-race scoring run. While consistency delivered the title to former team-mate Leonardo Fornaroli, it didn’t reap the same rewards for Goethe (who had the next highest average finishing position) and once he saw an opportunity to race in F2 – when friend Franco Colapinto stepped up to Formula 1 – he took it with both hands.

Although he failed to score in his first five races, he netted 14 points from the final three – including fourth place in the Lusail feature race – to leap to 23rd in the standings and he was the 14th fastest driver in the field on average race pace in a competitive MP Motorsport-run car.

Goethe also made a FRegional cameo with MP in the Macau Grand Prix, and it was another profile-boosting outing since he qualified second (just 0.014s shy of pole) then was runner-up in the qualification and main races. He will remain with MP for 2025 as he embarks on a full F2 campaign.

22. Christian Mansell

New entry • Stepped up to be F3 title outsider with ART

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

The teenaged Mansell began 2024 by stepping down from F3 to FRegional to contest the New Zealand-based Oceania championship. He only did two rounds, but still came away with a win, three second places, two poles and ninth in the standings.

Upon his return to single-seater’s third tier, where he has been racing since 2021, he did not have any high-impact performances – extending his win-free streak at that level to 56 races – but was methodological in maximising the pace of the package ART Grand Prix provided him with.

In this instance, it means Mansell was often a beneficiary of reversed grids yet also made the feature race podium four times – a figure only the win-free champion bettered.

Mansell’s average starting position was 8.9, but that was the fifth best in the field and he converted it into the third-largest feature race points haul in the field with 95 of his 112 points coming on Sundays. Pole position at Barcelona earned him an extra two as well.

Following the conclusion of the season, Mansell stepped up to F2 with Trident and adapted quickly to the higher level. From a sample size of three rounds and at three tracks that were new to him, he had the ninth best race pace in the field but was 27th on single-lap pace. He also led six laps, compared to 11 across the whole FIA F3 season, and scored in half of the races he contested. Unsurprisingly he will make the move to F2 full-time in 2025, driving for Rodin Motorsport.

21. Jacob Abel

New entry • Became Indy Nxt race-winner and title challenger in third year

Photo: Karl Zemlin

Abel’s impressive Indy Nxt season existed in the shadow of the champion’s utterly sublime one, but he was a step ahead of the rest of the pack so comfortably claimed the championship runner-up spot.

In the first three rounds (encompassing four races) he took two wins, two second places and three poles, which comfortably made him points leader. Although he only took one more win following that, there were six other podium finishes, no retirements and only two days in which he finished outside of the top 10.

Abel also did well in wheel-to-wheel battles, with a calm style that was predictable but often wasn’t picked up on by rivals. What proved costly was falling behind his rival Louis Foster in qualifying, particularly on the ovals where he started and finished behind at every single one.

But consistently being on the podium meant he ended the year 81 points clear of third in the standings, and having proven he can master the Indy Nxt car in his third season it’s now a question of whether he needs a fourth campaign or find a place in IndyCar to speed up his development curve on ovals. Next season the top-tier series races on five, and its support series visits four.

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 30-21 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 40-31

Formula Scout — Sun, 29 Dec 2024 13:18:40 +0000

Part two of Formula Scout’s countdown of the year’s best junior single-seater drivers continues with those ranked from 40th to 31st

40. Evan Giltaire

Down 14 • Was a winner early in first full FREC campaign

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

After looking promising in a couple of outings at the end of 2023, Giltaire stayed with ART Grand Prix for a full rookie campaign in Formula Regional Europe. The reigning French F4 champion looked like a potential title challenger as he calmly took his maiden win on the opening weekend at Hockenheim. However, thereafter his season lost rhythm as he struggled to get on top of tyre degradation, while team-mate Alessandro Giusti gained the upper hand as the team recovered from a dismal 2023 season.

After that initial high, Giltaire could only manage one more podium, in the first race at the Red Bull Ring.

He acknowledged that his inability to nail routinely a top five slot in split qualifying hampered his chances of progress in races. Overall, an average position of 6.7 in qualifying in his group meant he was only the season’s 13th fastest qualifier, leaving him stuck in the pack and exposed to the risk of midfield contact accordingly.

He did take second place in the rookie standings behind Noah Stromsted but will be looking to challenge for the main title in his sophomore year in 2025.

Giltaire had looked well-placed for a strong finish on his Macau debut, but starting the feature race from ninth he was a victim of team-mate James Wharton’s crash at Lisboa putting an end to his race.

39. Noel Leon

Up 11 • Progressed to score podiums in F3 and Macau

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

After dominating a weak Euroformula field in 2023, Leon’s first season in FIA Formula 3 was characterised by continued progress.

The in-season testing at Barcelona marked a turning point after a slow start for the Mexican and his Van Amersfoort Racing team. At Imola, he achieved his first podium in a chaotic conclusion to the sprint race, where he lost the lead on the last lap to cross the line in second place, then stood on the top step after a penalty for Oliver Goethe, only to then be penalised himself for a restart infraction and demoted to third.

After that Leon became a regular points scorer while his team-mates struggled. He became a frontrunner in the final rounds of the season, snatching three more podiums – including second in the Hungaroring feature race – to allow him to squeeze into the top 10 in the final standings.

He went on to finish on the podium at the Macau Grand Prix in a one-off return to FRegional machinery, and joins Prema for his second season in F3 in 2025.

38. Hiyu Yamakoshi

New entry • Took the fight to Slater after Italian F4 switch

Photo: ACI Sport

Yamakoshi was a revelation as he moved across to the Italian F4 championship with Van Amersfoort Racing, after combining the French and Spanish championships in 2023. The Japanese driver endeared himself to his team with his willingness to listen and learn, his conduct off-track and his speed on-track.

In a season where the rest of the filed was left somewhat in Freddie Slater’s shadow, Yamakoshi was the Englishman’s main challenger in the opening rounds. When he took three poles at Imola, he seemed to have rattled Slater slightly for the first and only time in the year. His two wins in Emilia-Romagna were fully deserved, while he was his own harshest critic for the mistake which cost him a hat-trick.

He took three more podiums at Vallelunga but lost direction mid-season before bouncing back in Barcelona, although a disastrous weekend at Monza cost him second in the final standings.

He did take two more victories in the Euro 4 series but lacked the consistency to challenge for overall honours, with Monza again proving his downfall.

Self-effacing, approachable and modest, if he can add a bit more aggression to his racing, Yamakoshi could shine in FRegional next year as he steps up with VAR.

37. Christian Ho

Up 4 • Singaporean was standout star of Eurocup-3

Photo: Eurocup-3

Ho looks like the next big talent from southeast Asia, and like many drivers with sighs set on Formula 1 he relocated to Europe for his karting career.

As a single-seater rookie in 2022 he was fairly anonymous, but since teaming up with Campos Racing last year he has become a rapid driver capable of winning streaks and title attacks. Spanish F4 was the first place he showed it, keeping the title fight going to the final round and winning the last four races, and in 2024 he stepped up to the FRegional-based Eurocup-3 and came two points short of being champion.

Failing to meet the chequered flag in the first two races meant he already had a 30-point margin to close, and while he took pole for the next race a slow start and a penalty meant he finished fourth and the gap to the top grew.

Ho’s response was two wins and two poles at Algarve, although retiring his car from second place in race three meant he was still 13 points behind in the title race, then a win and a second place from his double pole at Paul Ricard earned him the points lead.

The perfect weekend for main rival Javier Sagrera at Zandvoort while he only picked up one podium meant Ho trailed by 23 points ahead of the Spanish leg of the season, where his team was likely to have the advantage over the MP Motorsport outfit from the Netherlands than ran Sagrera.

A 10-second penalty for Ho denied him a double podium at Motorland Aragon and grew Sagrera’s advantage, and at Jerez only two points were snipped off as Ho claimed a lights-to-flag race one win and was fifth in race two after a prolonged battle with a team-mate that Ho couldn’t win due to their similar pace.

Ho finished second in race one of the Barcelona finale then comfortably took pole for the title decider. That was converted into a fifth win with ease, but the presence of guest drivers meant Sagrera earned two more points than usual in fifth and therefore pipped Ho to the crown – although that remains under appeal.

The 18-year-old Singaporean has not yet announced his 2025 plans, but there’s scant places left on the FIA F3 grid so there’s a risk that the off-season rather than results could slow his career momentum.

36. Sami Meguetounif

New entry • Fast but inconsistent rookie won two F3 feature races

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Meguetounif was immediately up to speed upon his FIA F3 debut, fighting for the podium in the season opener at Bahrain as he made the most of Trident’s highly competitive package.

A costly mistake in qualifying impacted his results in the second round of the championship at Melbourne, but he bounced back at Imola with a superb race management to win the feature race.

However, the Frenchman was not always able to accompany his speed with consistency, and only scored five points in the next five rounds.

He was aware he just needed to put it together, and so he did in the last two rounds to be fifth in the feature race at Spa-Francorchamps and then comfortably win the final race of the year at Monza, which he executed perfectly as he left the title contenders to squabble behind him.

Meguetounif did what his title-winning team-mate Leonardo Fornaroli could not by winning a race – twice – but never otherwise finished on the podium and therefore only scored just over half as many points and finished eighth in the standings. Rather than stay to put that right in 2025, another step up to Formula 2 beckons.

35. Tim Tramnitz

Down 6 • Red Bull junior was strongest in F3 sprints

Photo: Red Bull

Tramnitz quickly emerged as the leading driver of MP Motorsport’s all-rookie line-up in FIA F3.

The experience gathered during pre-season testing allowed him to finish fifth and third in the opening round of the season at Bahrain. The expectations were high after that, but the MP car was not always able to fight at the front.

Still, the Red Bull junior continued to make the podium in reversed-grid sprint races, twice finishing in second place at Imola and Monaco while the season was still in its early stages.

Results were hard to come by in the middle of the year but the German continued to progress as the season went on and kept maximising the opportunities he had. He capped off the season by scoring points in the last four races, and finally stood on the top step in the sprint race at Monza.

Ninth in the final standings, he scored more points than anybody – and 64% of his own total – in sprint races, so will be trying to lead MP forward into the top half of the top 12 in qualifying to score bigger in 2025.

34. Callum Voisin

New entry • Drove Rodin to the top step in F3

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Without a doubt, Voisin was one of the standout drivers of the second half of the 2024 FIA F3 season.

The Rodin Motorsport package lacked competitiveness and his lack of experience in the series didn’t help either, which led to him going points-free for the first six rounds.

However, the Silverstone round was an important turnaround. Helped by the mixed weather conditions and his and his British-based team’s local knowledge, Voisin extracted the maximum from the car and showcased his talent by qualifying ninth and finishing the sprint race in fourth place, before charging to first in a highly strategic feature race only to then be classified third because of a penalty.

The points streak continued at the Hungaroring and Spa-Francorchamps, where he starred again claiming pole position and then winning the feature race in slippery conditions.

33. Ollie Bearman

Down 27 • Managed three more F2 wins amid F1 call-ups and Prema struggles

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Bearman’s 2024 season was far off the expectations for a sophomore of his pedigree. Prema’s struggled with the set-up of the new F2 car was evident in its all-star line-up’s lack of results, with the car proving difficult to handle especially in the race.

However, Ferrari junior Bearman still put it on pole in Jeddah – a remarkable turnaround from Bahrain one week earlier – before he had to withdraw to make his surprise F1 debut.

More F1 commitments and the unpredictability of his car impacted the Briton’s performances from thereon. Qualifying became a struggle, and it was difficult to reach the front starting from the back. Nevertheless, Bearman still delivered when he found himself in a position to do so, winning the sprint races at Spielberg, Monza and Lusail.

The highlight of his season though was the Monaco feature race, where he charged from 12th place on the grid to fourth at the chequered flag, including a blistering opening lap, strong race pace and a brilliant move on his teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

32. Nikita Johnson

Up 16 • Teen won frequently in Indy Pro 2000 and twice in GB3

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Velocity Racing Development’s protege is still only 16, but has already proven himself on three rungs of the Road to Indy and now on the British racing scene too.

After taking two wins and two other podiums from five races in 2023, Johnson raced in the third-tier USF Pro 2000 full-time this year and won eight races but lost the title due to non-finishes and a disqualification. He not only won three more races than the champion, but became only the fourth driver in the last 27 years to surpass seven victories in a season.

Johnson was victorious in four of the first six races this season. That run was ended when he was disqualified from victory in race two on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course due to having a modified component on his car, and he not just lost the 30 points for winning but was also docked a further 30 points as a penalty.

His lead went from 55 to 15 points, but then he finished second from pole in race three and his closest title rival ran out of budget and dropped off the grid. The following race however also contributed to Johnson losing the title, as the Freedom 90 awarded additional points due to running on an oval. Johnson crashed out halfway through and had a penalty, and now he had just a one-point lead over Lochie Hughes.

A perfect weekend at the Road America triple-header put Hughes ahead, and Johnson rebounded by going unbeaten at Mid-Ohio but that was a two-race weekend so a big points gap still existed.

Then came Toronto. Johnson ploughed into the back of another car one corner into race one, then his attempt to pressure Hughes for the lead in race two turned into a spin and a race-ending crash. Now he was third in the points, and another unbeaten weekend in the Portland finale only moved him back up one spot.

VRD isn’t active in Indy Nxt, the next rung of the Road to Indy, so the team prepared Johnson for 2025 by also having him race in GB3 this year. He joined the grid after turning 16 and won twice en route to 11th in the standings. For 2025 he will stay there but join Hitech GP.

31. Noah Stromsted

New entry • Summary

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Against a dominant Prema and drivers with more FRegional experience, Stromsted probably did the maximum he could this year by coming sixth in FREC.

He was over 50 points shy of fifth place, but was classified as top rookie and in addition to four second places (one of which came from a pole position claimed in heavy rain at the Red Bull Ring), he had three other top-five finishes and three fastest laps.

Wet-weather form propelled him to strong results at multiple circuits, but Stromsted admitted to Formula Scout there was a pace struggle in the dry during the season’s first half. The building of experience helped him following that, and 62% of his points came after season’s halfway point.

Stromsted also scored 99.1% of Race Performance Motorsport’s points, individually matching the team’s combined podium tally from the previous two seasons and single-handedly earning it sixth place in the teams’ standings for 2024. Had he been with a more established outfit, there’s no doubt Stromsted’s struggles would have either been resolved quicker, been less costly in terms of points, or both.

There were also cameos in FRegional Middle East and FIA F3 either side of turning 17, and Stromsted will step up to the latter full-time for his fifth year of single-seater racing.

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 40-31 appeared first on Formula Scout.

Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 50-41

Formula Scout — Sat, 28 Dec 2024 20:22:42 +0000

Each year, the Formula Scout team forms its own ranking of the best performing junior single-seater drivers of the past 12 months. Here is part one of the countdown with the drivers we placed from 50th to 41st

50. Abbi Pulling

New entry • Never off the podium while dominating second F1 Academy season

Photo: F1 Academy

Alpine junior Pulling finally made good on her potential as she destroyed the field in the second season of F1 Academy.

The pressure was on Pulling after a winless 2023 and she had no answer to debutant Doriane Pin’s pace in the opening round in Jeddah, where pre-season testing had also taken place. But she was gifted a maiden win in race two when Pin was penalised for remaining at racing speeds after the finish, which seemed to give Pulling a huge confidence boost that she rode for the rest of the year.

From then onwards she seemed almost unbeatable in her Rodin Motorsport-run car, claiming 10 out of what would be 13 pole positions over the remainder of the season and converting eight of those into wins. She finished all 14 races on the podium – 13 of them in the top two – and even when a strange rescheduling quirk temporarily uncrowned her as champion, she responded perfectly to put it beyond doubt once more.

F1 Academy exists under a brighter media spotlight than any other Formula 4 series but Pulling never looked to be fazed as she closed the season out.

She also returned to British F4 this year with Rodin for rounds that didn’t clash with her main programme. Results there were more modest, but she took a reversed-grid win at Brands Hatch and second to the dominant Deagen Fairclough in the opening race at Thruxton. Next year she’ll hope to impress in a British-based series once more with a deserved step up to GB3.

49. Ugo Ugochukwu

Down 19 • Macau GP win salvaged arduous FRegional campaign

Photo: Macau Grand Prix

Photo: FIA

Tall, quiet, rapid, and caught smiling after he won junior single-seaters’ most prestigious race: the Macau Grand Prix.

McLaren junior Ugochukwu primarily drove for Prema this year, but his best performances came with other, less dominant teams.

In Formula Regional Middle East, driving a Mumbai Falcons-branded entry, Ugochukwu embarked on his first campaign above F4 (having cameoed in Formula 3 in 2023) and his tally of three podiums and seventh in the standings was not too bad given he went points-free in the first two races and if the season was one race longer he could’ve jumped his team-mates in the standings.

But when Prema headed to Europe, sophomore star Rafael Camara and fellow rookie James Wharton had a clear advantage over Ugochukwu for most of the season. Team principal Rene Rosin conceded that the American’s difficulties were not all of his making: issues with two engines led to a disqualification at Paul Ricard after the team felt it had no choice but to introduce a third powerplant, and he was only able to salvage his campaign by winning from pole in the final round at Monza.

A third of the way into the season he was 16th in the standings while Camara topped the table, and 40% of Ugochukwu’s total points tally came at Monza.

He had already proven race-winning capabilities at the FRegional level earlier in the year though, contesting three GB3 rounds with Rodin and claiming three podiums. He retired while fighting for third in his final race at Spa-Francorchamps, and prior to that his average finishing position had been 3.7.

For the FRegional World Cup-awarding Macau GP in November he joined R-ace GP, and he took pole, won the qualification race then after some restart antics led lights-to-flag in the main race around the trickiest of circuits. He keeps faith with Prema though for his step up to FIA F3 for 2025.

48. Tymek Kucharczyk

New entry • GB3 title contender amid funding uncertainty

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Kucharczyk had shown flashes of great speed when he arrived in GB3 with Douglas Motorsport in 2023 without achieving the results to show for it. Securing a seat with Hitech GP for 2024 would allow him to put that right.

Indeed, he led what would be a three-way title fight in the early part of the season, setting the qualifying pace at Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps and coming away with three poles and three wins from the two consecutive race weekends. He had the pace at the Hungaroring too, but an exclusion for a technical infringement and a further non-score cost him the points lead.

He bounced back strongly at another continental venue, Zandvoort, with his fourth win allowing him to reclaim the advantage. By now, however, he had been forced to tape over the logos of main backer Orlen on his racesuit as the Polish oil giant cut back its motorsport sponsorships. His win in the Dutch dunes would prove to be his last and his form wasn’t quite the same over the three British rounds that ended the season, as he slipped to third in the points.

While John Bennett, who beat Kucharczyk to second in the standings, makes the leap to Formula 2, Kucharczyk’s future remains uncertain but he would surely deserve to join champion Louis Sharp in stepping up to FIA F3.

47. Taito Kato

New entry • Honda-backed rookie triumphed in tight French F4 fight

Photo: KSP

Kato emulated Ayumu Iwasa by arriving in French F4 with Honda backing and claiming the championship at the first attempt. But while Iwasa had already celebrated his 19th birthday by the time his COVID-delayed 2020 season had concluded, Kato was still only 16 when he clinched his title.

Just as Iwasa had taken on and defeated a second-year French F4 racer in Isack Hadjar, Kato faced more experienced competition in Belgian series sophomore Yani Stevenheydens, who seemed to have the edge on outright speed with eight pole positions across the year to Kato’s four. French rookie Jules Caranta made it a three-way battle, racing to four ‘feature race’ victories despite no poles, and doing enough to land Red Bull junior status.

All three had four wins to their name going into the final round but it was Kato that would claim a crucial fifth in controversial fashion, with a pass on Stevenheydens that was initially penalised post-race for taking place off track but successfully appealed. Once the pair clashed again in race three and Stevenheydens was penalised, Kato wound up as champion.

Having Honda legend Takuma Sato in his corner was invaluable for Kato, but to find success so soon in Europe demonstrates his potential, which he will continue to develop in a French environment by joining ART Grand Prix in FRegional.

46. Jack Beeton

New entry • Second-best to supreme Slater in Italian F4

Photo: ACI Sport

He may have been on the podium in close to half of the races in Italian F4 this year (10 out of 21), but that didn’t make him a regular victory contender due to the domination of Prema’s Freddie Slater.

Taking that sample of races, Beeton was on average (at the end of green-flag running in those races due to some ending behind the safety car) only 1.4 seconds off the lead so when he and US Racing were competitive he wasn’t being gapped by the dominant champion.

But Beeton also non-scored in a third of the races, so only just secured second in the standings against two drivers who were not podium contenders at as many circuits as he was.

He was a two-time podium-finisher in F4 United Arab Emirates, albeit with the AGI Sport team he won the 2023 F4 South East Asia title with, but with US Racing he was only able to take one podium in Italian F4’s sister series Euro 4.

In Formula Winter Series, which takes place in Spain, he took home three trophies from his first appearance at Motorland Aragon but was down the order in his second outing at Barcelona as his team was mostly off the pace.

Switching to Prema for the step up to FRegional next year will answer more questions about Beeton’s abilities given he has over 20 podiums but only three wins from 99 races in F4.

45. John Bennett

New entry • GB3 runner-up then shone after shock F2 step

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

2024 provided quite a turnaround in the career of Bennett, with a third year spent in GB3 ultimately yielding second place in the championship and an unexpected step up to F2.

After a promising first season of single-seaters in 2022 with Elite Motorsport was followed by a tough second campaign with Rodin Carlin – falling from eight to 10th in the standings – he joined JHR Developments for 2024 and made an immediate impression. After following the eventual champion Sharp home in the first race of the season at Oulton Park, he pulled off a bold pass around the outside of his rival in the treacherous conditions of race two to score a long-awaited maiden win.

He remained a consistent threat through GB3’s leg of races abroad, scoring another win at Zandvoort and one more next time out at Silverstone meant he closed to within four points of the lead. He wasn’t able to match Sharp’s form through the final two rounds, but did at least take the fight down to the wire.

Bennett’s career – which began with two years in the humble Ginetta GT5 Challenge – also took in series outside of Britain for the first time in 2024. His FRME campaign with Evans GP yielded only one point but did lead to a FREC outing at Zandvoort, where he qualified a strong sixth in his group.

Later came FIA F3 testing with Van Amersfoort Racing, which in turn led to him being called up for two F2 rounds with the team. He remarkably raced to 12th and then eighth in his first two races at Losail, and has secured the seat full-time for 2025.

44. Keanu Al Azhari

New entry • Fought for F4 titles in UAE and Spain

Photo: Spanish F4

Category sophomore Al Azhari’s ability to fight for the title in two competitive F4 championships made for a very impressive 2024, albeit being another driver in the shadow of Slater in the UAE and losing out to a rookie in Spanish F4.

His winning form on home soil made it less of a surprise when he was then a podium regular in Europe, and he won seven races in total.

In F4 UAE he utilised the local experience of the Yas Heat Academy team, taking three poles out of four at the team’s home circuit in rounds one and two. Those were converted into two second places then a 10th place and a win in round two, but he took a reversed-grid win thanks to an opening lap charge that weekend too.

At Dubai Autodrome he claimed two podiums, and on the return to Yas Marina Circuit snatched the points lead from Slater, but in the Dubai finale qualified poorly and got a drive-through penalty in race one. Finishing fifth in race two actually grew his lead, but he came out of some scrappy racing in the decider with an eighth place finish and third in the standings.

Next were two FWinter Series outings with MP Motorsport, and in the first he converted a double pole into a win and a second place. An underwhelming Barcelona weekend still lifted him to seventh in the points table.

That was a warm-up for his full Spanish F4 season with MP, in which he was on the podium at every round and only once had a two-race spell of being podium-free. His consistency, with his wins and poles coming at three different tracks, meant once he claimed the points lead in the fifth race of the year he held it for 15 races and only lost it at the penultimate race as Barcelona again proved a weak point despite taking two podiums from the title-deciding weekend.

Al Azhari will pit himself against new rivals in 2025, and on new circuits, by heading to GB3.

43. Syun Koide

New entry • Honda junior sets up Super Formula graduation with Lights success

Photo: Super Formula Lights

Koide is on the cusp of a promotion to Super Formula with B-MAX Racing, the team he won the Super Formula Lights title with.

The third-tier series uses the same car as Euroformula and is an alternative option for drivers who cannot afford to race in FIA F3 but actually operates more like F2 in that it acts as a proving ground for drivers targeting seats at single-seaters’ top level in Japan.

Now 25, Koide started his car racing career later than most who target open-wheel success as he was already in his 20s. But he impressed enough during an incomplete rookie Japanese F4 season to become a Honda junior from 2021 onwards, and he followed up one win in the championship that year with nine and the title in 2022.

Four victories for the one-car Toda Racing outfit in his rookie SF Lights campaign earned him his place at the crack B-MAX outfit for 2024 and he absolutely made the most of it with victories at every round bar one, six poles and a near-repeat of his 2023 efforts at Okayama when he went unbeaten. This time he won twice and took a second place on a wet track in race two.

Rain is a common challenge for drivers on the Japanese racing scene, and Koide proved more than capable of pulling off passes in tricky conditions between safety car interruptions. There was plenty of talent and experience on this year’s grid, and Koide convincingly became champion.

42. Max Garcia

New entry • Winning start to USF2000 season aged 14 set up title success

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Garcia was only 14 when the USF2000 season began in St. Petersburg, but any age concerns were shaken off by two poles that he converted into two wins and the points lead on a circuit he was too young to drive as a rookie in 2023.

In race one he made an error on the rolling start, but after a caution period looked impressive when pressuring drivers and pulled off moves that brought him back to the front of the field. He also lost the lead at the start of race two, but again found a way to reclaim first place.

The points lead remained in Garcia’s hands all the way to the end of the season, but it was more the inconsistency of his rivals rather than his own form that led to him becoming champion by 73 points, the equivalent of two wins and an eighth place.

A win at NOLA Motorsports Park (having now turned 15) was followed by two poles and a podium, and at Indianapolis Motor Speedway he won from sixth on the grid. Seventh place in USF2000’s only oval race followed, then another pole at Road America but no podiums. In the Mid-Ohio triple-header there was a single podium while his rivals picked up the poles and wins, but he was the weekend’s second-highest scorer.

Garcia led a Pabst Racing one-two in qualifying for race one on the streets of Toronto, and was 0.1846 seconds short of doing the double. But after leading the first half of race one he messed up a restart and finished third, with a fourth place following in race two. Again, he was the second-highest scorer though.

In the Portland finale the single-seater sophomore returned to winning ways, starting off with taking pole by just 0.0746s in a dry qualifying session. But a drive-through penalty for corner cutting in a sodden race one meant he had to charge up the field to earn second place. He then had to work hard from fourth on the grid to win race two, a result that sealed the title, and was runner-up in race three.

His scholarship prize for being champion will be spent on a step up to USF Pro 2000 with Pabst.

41. Max Taylor

New entry • USF Juniors champion fought for USF2000 title too

Photo: Gavin Baker Photography

Velocity Racing Development loyalist Taylor reaped the rewards of contesting three different series this year, just as he did as a car racing rookie in 2023.

Last year he won in USF Juniors, cameoed in United States F4 and had a best finish of sixth from a part-time USF2000 campaign, then for 2024 he did USF2000 and its immediate support series in full with a GB3 outing – also with VRD – on the side.

It actually took a while for Taylor to win in IndyCar’s support series, and swapping between two very similar but slightly different cars between weekends was as difficult as having to do the same thing on the three weekends where he could have a window as short as half an hour between hopping out of one car and being ready to drive the other.

But once it all clicked in USF Juniors, it truly clicked, and when he visited circuits in USF2000 he had already raced on in 2023 that experience in the bank also pushed him into race-winning form.

In the second half of the USF2000 season he won three races, took a second place, a pole position and secured third in the standings, while in the slightly slower USF Juniors machinery he had two victories, three other podiums, three poles and went from being two points behind in the title fight to winning the title.

That earned him a scholarship to spend on USF2000 for 2025, but instead he will move another step up the latter to USF Pro 2000 with VRD.

The post Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 50-41 appeared first on Formula Scout.