Photo: FIA

Junior single-seater team Hitech GP has announced a long-term partnership with OTK Kart Group and its famed kart brand Tony Kart.

It will create a ‘kart to cars programme’ with Tony Kart’s factory team, supporting its drivers aged 13 to 15 who seek to progress to single-seaters. This will include access to Hitech’s factory, simulator and personnel in multiple departments, and those who star in the programme will then get opportunities to do Formula 4 tests.

“Our relationship with Tony Kart goes back to my own formative years racing karts and has gone from strength to strength over the years,” said Hitech founder Oliver Oakes.

“We are very much aligned in terms of our mission and values, but also our methodology. The ‘Karts to Cars Programme’ is the result of a great deal of careful consideration as to how we can create a really significant academy programme to help emerging talents advance their fledgling motorsport careers.”

As a team and chassis manufacturer, Tony Kart has had immense success and won its first world championship in 1986.

OTK’s chief executive officer Roberto Robazzi explained that Tony Kart’s factory team wanted to create a direct link to single-seaters “to guarantee its most talented drivers” have an opportunity to head there.

Engineer Thomas Gomis recently became FIA Karting’s technical manager, and oversaw the inaugural FIA Karting Shootout in Valencia on December 2-7.

The event, only announced on November 18, included practical sessions, workshops and tests as drivers were educated and assessed on and off-track.

Karters in the junior pool were evaluated in Parolin karts, with the top three receiving free tyres, fuel and entries for up to five FIA karting events in 2026. The winner also got funding of €6,000 (£5,244) per event, with second and third winning half of that, but all three could opt for free entry to one of FIA Karting’s Arrive-and-drive continental championships in 2026 instead.

Senior karters tested in Campos Racing-run Formula 4 cars on Pirelli tyres, and competed for €250,000 (£218,517) to spend on a season in F4.

While the FIA stated that 24 drivers earned shootout places through success in its karting events through 2025, there were only eight junior contestants and seven present in the senior pool.

The junior contest had two days of off-track sessions assessing physical, mental and driving skills at Campos’s headquarters. Participants then headed to the nearby Aspar circuit for two days, working with Parolin’s driver trainers while on track.

After intense deliberation from the judging panel, Valerio Viapiana was chosen as the winner ahead of Troy Ferguson and Michele Orlando.

The senior contest began on December 4 and had two days of off-track assessments preceding two days of track action in the same locations. Manuel Scognamiglio did not test at Aspar having withdrawn due to injury, and on the final morning Knud Nielsen and Oscar Goudchaux were eliminated.

The top four embarked on qualifying and race simulations on fresh tyres, and following that 16-year-old Yusuki Sato was picked as winner.

FIA Karting Shootout contestants

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Photo: Sport-in-photo

The FIA is closer to introducing its own senior and junior electric karting classes after having technical and homologation regulations approved by the World Motor Sport Council last month.

There are already electric kart series in several countries, and the FIA’s technical regulations for electric karting at the mini level were published two years ago.

For the steps above it in the karting ladder, it has now produced the paperwork that determines what parameters drivetrain system providers should operate in, what voltage and weight limits will be set, and perhaps most importantly how much powertrain integration will be required in design so the new technology can go into old karts with adaptation.

There will be a 60V limit for the senior and junior classes, and batteries will need to be positioned centrally and below the steering column in future karts. This design choice is a key safety measure.

The electric drivetrains that will be homologated by the FIA within these regulations will have power-limited rechargeable energy storage systems. A drivetrain used in junior karting would be capped at 23kW, and it would be 28kW for the senior class.

The homologation regulations also mention “the use of high voltage (above 60 V DC or 30 V AC) under the approved equipment regime (to be distinguished from homologated equipment) remains possible, provided that it is strictly limited to ‘Arrive & Drive’ programmes, under the sole responsibility of the manufacturer or supplier of the system”.

Akbar Ebrahim, the FIA Karting Commission president, said electric karting “presents a significant opportunity to contribute to the continued growth of global karting and these regulations will unlock fresh possibilities for events and championships around the world” once they are introduced in 2026.

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Photo: Champions of the Future

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Photo: Red Bull

The FIA decided to grant an early superlicense to Formula 2 racer Arvid Lindblad during a meeting of its World Motor Sport Council today.

One of the requirements to qualify for an FIA superlicense, which is needed to race in Formula 1, is that a driver must be 18 or older. A rule change introduced in 2024, when Andrea Kimi Antonelli was being linked with an early F1 debut, means the governing body can now give special dispensation for certain drivers to receive their superlicence at 17.

Lindblad does not reach adulthood until August, and Red Bull put in a request to the FIA for an exemption to be made while the Anglo-Swede is 17. It means he could be considered as a stand-in at either of its two teams should Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen pick up a race ban this month.

Lindblad has already met the other requirement for a superlicense, which is to accumulate 40 superlicence points over the past three years, since making his single-seater debut in 2022.

• Read more: The trait more valuable than superlicence points that Lindblad now has

He has won in four different Formula 4 competitions, Formula Regional Middle East and the FIA Formula 3 Championship. This year he won the FRegional Oceania title and stepped up to Formula 2, where he is currently third in the standings with two victories and a pole. He got his first F1 mileage in a demo on a former IndyCar circuit last year.

During the World Motor Sport Counil meeting, the FIA also approved the proposal to award two superlicence points to the winner of the FIA F4 World Cup in Macau. That race was won by Lindblad in 2023 before it was granted World Cup status.

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Photo: Eurocup-3

Christian Ho has been confirmed as the 2024 Eurocup-3 champion after the conclusion of an appeal process that went to the FIA.

Campos Racing driver Ho won the final race of last season at Barcelona, but fifth place for MP Motorsport’s Javier Sagrera provisionally crowned him champion by two points. The results of the previous day’s race were under appeal at that point, and soon the finale would be too.

In race one of the weekend, Ho had finished second behind MP’s Emmo Fittipaldi. On lap 16 of 20, Ho dived down the inside of Fittipaldi at turn one and got ahead. Fittipaldi tried staying alongside but went off, and after rejoining via the designated escape road he swept around the outside of Ho at turn three to get back ahead.

Once the race-winning moment was reviewed there was no further action taken by the stewards and it was confirmed several hours after the finish that Fittipaldi was victorious. Campos moved quickly to lodge an appeal against that decision.

A penalty of any kind applied to Fittipaldi would have meant a seven-point swing in Ho’s favour, which at the time of the chequered flag the next day would have been more than enough for Ho to take the title.

Ho started race two on pole, and moved across at the start to keep Fittipaldi at bay, while Sagrera got involved in a four-wide fight for third down to the first turn. Sagrera went off, and was one of nine drivers who got to turn three by using the designated escape road. By doing so he moved ahead of Campos’s Valentin Kluss and Drivex School’s Nikita Bedrin.

It took a few corners for Bedrin to get back past Sagrera, who later shook off Kluss and was not investigated for the pass until post-race. That led to a five-second penalty, but he gained back a place when MP breached parc ferme regulations on Tangavelou’s car and he was disqualified. Sagrera therefore remained champion, and the situation escalated between Campos and MP as Formula Scout reported at the time. Three months later, the situation is now resolved:

The [FIA] International Court has upheld the decision made by the RFEDA’s Appeals and Disciplinary Committee, the highest national authority, which overturned the ruling of the Stewards in the final round of the Eurocup-3 held in Montmeló last November. At that time, the stewards validated an overtake that exceeded track limits, which was decisive in the final outcome of the championship.

 

Following the ruling of the RFEDA’s Appeals and Disciplinary Committee correcting this decision, a new appeal was filed before the International Court, the highest tribunal in our sport, leading to this final ruling, which is not subject to further appeal.

 

Therefore, Christian Ho, takes race one win in the season finale at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya after adding a five-second penalty to #24 driver’s final result and consequently extra seven points that definitively crown him 2024 Eurocup-3 champion.

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Photo: ACI Sport

Emanuele Pirro has taken over as the FIA’s single-seater president and, in conversation with Formula Scout, set out his main priorities in the role 

Limiting the rocketing costs of competing at the lower levels of motor sport and dealing with deteriorating driving standards are the top priorities of Emanuele Pirro, president of the FIA’s Single-Seater Committee.

Pirro, who succeeded Giancarlo Minardi in the role in May 2024 after leaving his driver development role at McLaren, sat down with Formula Scout to outline his concerns about the world of junior single-seater racing.

The former Formula 1 driver and five-time winner of the Le Mans 24 Hours is a highly-respected figure in the racing world. He is an old-school racer at heart, someone for whom the values and principle of fairness still matter.

He has sought out the opinions of various stakeholders – teams, drivers, circuits, promoters and national sporting authorities – as he looks to address the most important issues facing the sport.

“I’m a reasonable person. I’m not a dictator. I really listen to a lot of people. I am a balanced person. I’m not somebody who cuts things with a sharp knife. That is not my personality. But I’m somebody who is not afraid of bringing up ideas if he and the people around him believe they’re right,” he says.

He considers that the fact that “I didn’t ask for this position” means his voice carries more weight with the multiple stakeholders.

“The minute I published that I was leaving McLaren, my phone rang, and they offered me this position. I am very happy and proud that they asked me, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t need to be here and so I don’t need to protect my seat,” he argues.

Acknowledging that “every decision has an impact, positive to some entities, less positive to some others,” he is determined to drive change in two main areas: costs and on-track safety.

Budgets have exploded in recent years at all levels, partly due to inflation, but also due to the unending search for performance.

Pirro admits that it is still “a little bit too early” to discuss details, but is, he says, “determined and I’d be disappointed if major things don’t happen.”

He admits that with FIA Formula 2 and Formula 3 operated independently by Formula Motorsport Limited, part of the Formula One Group, the power of the FIA to manage costs there is limited, even if “the closer you go to F1, it is definitely beneficial to make it cheaper.”

His focus is by necessity, therefore, on “the entry level, because when you are in F2 or F3 you know already whether you have it or you don’t have it.”

Budgets of over half a million euros are not unknown for a season in Formula 4, the foundation of the FIA’s junior pyramid structure.

“Nowadays, we are, I would say, lucky, in brackets, that there are a large number of very wealthy people around the world that can afford motorsport. But the sport has a responsibility not to follow this demand too much, because if things change then you end up with a very expensive motor sport,” he says.

Therein lies the nub of the problem, something that Formula Scout has been highlighting since the departure of respected teams, such as Mucke Motorsport, and the death of championships like ADAC F4. While competitors may complain about rising costs, the drivers, and their backers, whether parental or commercial, demand and expect almost unlimited testing, which drives up the costs enormously.

Photos: ADAC

While solutions such as standardising parts can contribute to savings, the key is “reducing track time,” he believes. “You can reduce the cost of clothes but if you still want to have 50 shirts in your wardrobe…”

He is realistic enough to understand that there is no watertight solution. “There will [always] be somebody who works around it, but if you’re waiting for something with 100% success, you will never change it. So you have to be brave [but] start with something that makes sense.”

So, rather than preventing teams and drivers (and their parents or sponsors) from spending whatever they can afford, and often more, his aim is to limit the value of such spending, to ensure that there are rapidly diminishing returns from spending above a certain level.

“My personal wish or dream is not to make [competing] cheaper, but to make sure that one more euro buys as little extra performance as possible. If somebody wants to spend €2 million for an F4 season, I want to make sure that their advantage is as small as possible. This is my philosophy.”

“Long term, if a championship is more affordable, it cannot be bad,” he says. Amen to that, and few would disagree, but in practice it has proved close to impossible to prevent those with money available from spending it to find a few 1/1000ths of lap time.

On a related note, Pirro challenges the perception that ever-larger entry lists are positive for the sport.

“Nowadays, the health of a championship is nearly always measured by number of entries. ‘How is your championship? I’ve got 24 cars, a full grid, it’s great’

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

“It is quality that we should look for, not the quality of the drivers necessarily, [but] the quality of the whole thing. The top teams in F4 basically can’t answer the phone for the number of people that want to race for them and are willing to pay this much. Is this really what motor sport needs? Or maybe it is something more affordable, more simple.

“When you go to a higher level, let’s talk about Formula 1, which is the highest level, quantity was never sought. We only talk about quality, why should we have a different approach in the lower formulas?”

Limiting grid sizes might mean politely turning away drivers who do not meet the necessary standards. “Sport is meritocracy. There are different disciplines in motorsport, so we should not enlarge the grids and the circuits just because the demand is higher,” he maintains.

But the topics which really ignite Pirro’s passion are driving standards and safety more widely. In previous roles with the FIA, he has been an F1 steward and a driving standards officer in F3.

“I am convinced that motorsport has done a wonderful part in terms of passive safety, [by which] I mean protecting drivers and officials during an accident, let’s say.”

What is lacking still, however, are measures to prevent an accident in the first place – circuit layout and driving standards, which have “deteriorated a lot,” he believes.

If you watch a race, from “30, 20, even 10 years ago the attacking and defending manoeuvres were much, much different,” he argues. “Things that are done today you couldn’t even think about years ago.

“In an F4 race almost one third of the laps are behind the safety car, meaning not so far off 50% of the race [duration] is behind the safety car. People don’t pay to run behind the safety car. It’s crazy!

Photo: ACI Sport

“We are so lucky that we get so many warnings, so many close calls of accidents, but somehow, disappointingly, motorsport has reacted, in my opinion, too strongly and sometimes too emotionally, only after fatalities.”

He adds that motor racing needs to “learn from the close calls and anticipate the fatalities before they happen and trying to improve the driving standards is really a must.”

Pirro believes that higher safety has reduced the fear factor for drivers. With drivers now entering F4 as soon as they turn 15, the average age of drivers on the grid is much lower than in his day. “A young kid does not have the same perception of how much he risks as an [older] kid. You feel so protected and there is so much space around you.”

Everyone is in a hurry to move up the ladder and competition on track is fierce. While accepting that aiming for F1 is nothing new, he says “somehow I think now, maybe they try even harder.”

Back in the day, says Pirro, “when somebody was in your tow, at a circuit like the old Hockenheim, he would overtake you on the straight. You would not even think about putting him on the grass or zigzagging. Were we stupid? Were we gentlemen? We were maybe a little bit naive, but we knew that if somebody did something to you, immediately after, you would do it [back].”

There was no need for penalties for impeding in qualifying, because “for sure, if you block me today, the next qualifying I’ll wait for you and I’ll block you. I’m not saying this was right [but] there was a self policing.”

“We live in a different world,” he shrugs.

He is unsurprisingly reluctant to point the finger at any one driver but observes that “tactics” like moving under braking, “have been developed in the course of time by professionals,” meaning those at the supposed pinnacle of the sport, F1.

Photo: Red Bull

“When I was a steward in F1, I was very, very strong in trying to modify the rules and to cover this moving under braking. I was the first to address it with [Max] Verstappen and [Lewis] Hamilton, and to ask to enforce the penalty, not because I fear that they do something wrong. They know very well what they do, but they are copied by less capable people and then it’s a mess.”

He has been around long enough to know that changing attitudes to what is acceptable behaviour on track “is difficult, because it requires education at all levels, including officials, and basically resetting everything. The drivers’ commission [of which Pirro is still a member] wrote this driving standards document, but I really believe that work should be done before it’s too late.”

He draws the analogy with track limits where an approach has developed, or been allowed to develop, of “three strikes, plus one black and white [flag] and then a penalty. The drivers know exactly at which number they are, so you will have at least four strikes per driver.”

Interestingly, he explains how this rule, even though personally he “wasn’t really in favour,” was intended to remove the time-consuming and subjective assessment of whether a track limits infraction had resulted in the driver gaining an advantage.

The decision was therefore taken to give everybody three “free passes” to cover the few instances where a driver had been forced off track, or run wide through a driver error. But the thinking hasn’t been well explained to the public, says Pirro. “In Austria, in F1, [Lando] Norris was penalised for the last one,” even though it seemed harsh to penalise a driver for being edged off the track in a duel for position, but actually it was for “the other four [times when] he had gained.”

Pirro is relaxed about a driver weaving on the straight to break a tow, “because you only make your straight longer.” What he believes you shouldn’t be allowed to do is to “move as a reaction to an action. What is really not fair is that somebody has a run on you, and you force him to back off, or push him off track.

“We are working to incentivise overtaking, finding gadgets [like DRS] and then you give too many tools to the defending driver to defend himself.

“The young kids need very strong regulation. It’s like school. You have more respect for the teacher who is very hard but very good and keeps the classroom silent than the teacher who doesn’t have this ability, and it’s a mess and the kids don’t learn anything.

“You have to be firm. Penalising people hurts, but by penalising one you help 29 other people,” he believes.

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Photo: Formula Regional by Alpine

The FIA has issued an invitiation to tender for the supply of tyres to all certified Formula Regional championships from 2026 to 2028.

The invitiation was published on October 21, and the submission deadline for interested parties is November 24. A decision from the FIA on which company will be selected to become the supplier will be made no later than the end of January 2025.

Since it is a global supply tender, a key requirement from a manufacturer wanting to take on the contract is that it can prove it has a supply chain that enables worldwide production or distribution, and that it has a manufacturing capacity for racing tyres that means it could supply 100s of cars year-long. The FIA estimates this will mean 4,000 to 8,000 sets of tyres per year.

There are currently continental FRegional championships in Europe, North America and Oceania, as well as a regional championship in the Middle East and a Japanese one too. At the end of each year, starting from 2024, is the FRegional World Cup-awarding Macau Grand Prix.

Hankook is the current tyre supplier for FRegional Americas, Pirelli has the contract for Europe and Oceania, Dunlop supplies in Japan and Giti Tyres is the tyre partner of FRME. These will all have a spec tyre supplier as of 2026, and offers from manufacturers to supply only a selection of those championships will not be considered.

If global supply can not be achieved by any interested party, then “the FIA reserves the right, without giving reasons therefore and at its sole discretion, not to select any tenderer for any or all of the championships and/or not to enter into a contract with the selected tenderer”.

Should all of the FIA’s FRegional championships use the same tyres, there is no requirement for them to be branded as such. The manufacturer can enter agreements with championship promoters for their products to be sold under a different name, and this can reflect their market presence. For example Japanese tyre manufacture Bridgestone has used its Dayton and Firestone subsidiaries to sell its racing tyres in the USA.

The FIA has also noted that in 2028, teams and chassis manufacturers would be allowed to test with tyres from a different supplier to the global one.

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Photo: FRME

The FIA has named the teams that will enter cars into the inaugural Formula Regional World Cup in Macau this November.

Having traditionally run for Formula 3 cars, the Macau Grand Prix will instead switch to being a race for FRegional machinery, specifically the Tatuus T-318 chassis and Autotecnica-built Alfa Romeo engines already used in a number of championships around the world.

Eleven teams have been confirmed by the FIA, representing several different FRegional series.

Five of the entered teams currently compete in the FRegional European Championship where the Tatuus chassis is used with Alpine-branded Renault powerplants: Prema, R-ace GP, ART Grand Prix, Sainteloc Racing, and MP Motorsport.

With the exception of ART, those teams have all also raced the Alfa Romeo engine in the Middle East championship along with PHM Racing, Pinnacle Motorsport and Evans GP which have also all placed entries for Macau.

Also entered is storied Japanese outfit TOM’S, a five-time winner of the Macau GP in F3 and which competes in the FRegional Japanese Championship, where the Autotecnica engine is fitted to a Dome chassis.

Another Japanese team entered is Super Formula squad TGM Grand Prix, which has not competed in FRegional previously.

Completing the list is Kiwi Motorsport, which competes in its native FRegional Oceania with the Tatuus-Toyota combination and FRegional Americas with its Ligier-Honda cars.

The FIA has not said how many cars each team will run, but had previously indicated that the field would be capped at 27 entries, suggesting only some of the 11 teams will compete with as many as three cars each.

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

The FIA, motorsport’s global governing body, announced the launch of a new concussion awareness campaign during its second World Motor Sport Council meeting of 2024.

For several years the federation has worked on a large-scale concussion research and response project, and there have been parallel advancements in research on the matter in other sports too.

Head injuries, and more specifically concussions, can be sustained in all forms of motorsport and can occur without a crash even having to occur due to the forces the human body is put under while at the wheel. This became apparent in Formula 1 two years ago when the car designs induced porpoising – a bouncing up and down of the chassis due to differences in air pressure above and below the vehicle – and drivers reported the continuous vibrations had side-effects for their heads.

The FIA Medical and Safety team’s new project has an educational focus and has been plotted in a way that it can be rapidly rolled out across all of motorsport to make more competitors, organisers and circuit staff aware of concussions and the dangers they present.

“The educational content, created to be used across social platforms and as printable assets, is available to all member clubs. The assets will be available in any club’s language of choice,” read the FIA’s statement announcing the campaign.

“Concussion is a mild brain injury that needs to be taken seriously, and by educating on how to spot it, the steps to take if concussed, and how to return to racing, this knowledge sharing will help keep motor sport as safe as possible. The best concussion is the one you don’t have, and prevention is the first line of defence.

“Signs of concussion to watch out for include: headache, nausea, dizziness, fatigue, problems balancing, amnesia or forgetfulness [and] irritability or changed emotional state.

“Competitors with symptoms should present themselves to the medical team who will assess and advise. Remember, if in doubt, sit out.

“On returning to racing after a concussion, international competitors should follow the regulations in Appendix L of the FIA Sporting Code. National competitors should follow the advice of their ASN medical department, with all competitors declaring concussion instances to the chief medical officer at the start of their next race.”

Not all concussion symptoms are immediate, and delayed onset of them – particularly when competitors are full of adrenaline or in a state of shock – can lead to many head injuries going unspotted during initial medical examinations after crashes.

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Photo: Mercedes-AMG F1

The FIA modified its superlicence requirements on Tuesday during its second World Motor Sport Council meeting of 2024.

In article 13 of the Appendix L of the International Sporting Code, which relates to qualification requirements for FIA superlicences, the line “the driver must be the holder of a valid driving licence when he applies for a Super Licence for the first time” has been removed from the requirements for a full and free practice-only superlicence.

That requirement had also existed to qualify for the FIA’s two e-Licences, which enables drivers to either compete in free practice or race in Formula E, but has been removed from article 14 of the ISC too.

While the requirement remains that drivers should be at least 18 years old before starting their “first F1 competition”, a new line has been added for both full and free practice-only superlicences stating:

“At the sole discretion of the FIA, a driver judged to have recently and consistently demonstrated outstanding ability and maturity in single-seater formula car competition may be granted a Super Licence at the age of 17 years old.”

The consensus is, despite no indication from the FIA that this is the case, that these changes have been made to enable Mercedes-AMG to promote its junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli to F1.

Antonelli is 17 years old and is embarking on his rookie season in Formula 2, with three fourth places his best results from his first 10 races. He turns 18 in August, and for 2025 has been heavily linked to replacing the Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes or to join one of its powertrain customers such as Williams.

The Italian is currently sixth in the F2 standings, and should he end the season outside of the top 10 he would still meet the points requirement to qualify for a superlicence since he scored 43 points by winning the Formula Regional Europe and Middle East championships last year and a further 24 points by taking the title in ADAC and Italian Formula 4 in 2022.

The change could potentially allow Antonelli to take part in a race weekend – either just practice sessions or a full grand prix – before his birthday on August 25, should the FIA decide he has shown enough ability to meet its new requirement.

Alcohol testing has also been removed from the scope of the FIA’s spec medical examinations that competitors can be made to take during events.

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