Photo: ormula Motorsport Ltd

Laurens van Hoepen will race full-time in Formula 2 next year with Trident, after joining the team for the last three rounds of the 2025 season.

A 19th place was the 20-year-old Dutchman’s best result in a qualifying session from his short spell on the grid, and his highest place finish in a race was 14th in the sprint race at Yas Marina Circuit last weekend.

For the last two years his main focus has been on racing in the FIA Formula 3 Championship with ART Grand Prix. He was 13th in the 2024 standings with three sprint race podiums, including second place on debut, and came 12th this season with two sprint race podiums.

“I’m excited to compete in [F2] next season with Trident,” said van Hoepen. “The experience gained in the three appearances I made in this championship has been very useful in preparing for this step. Together with the technical staff, we made progress that will be fundamental for next year. We have an intense and challenging season ahead of us.”

Next year will be the first since 2021 in van Hoepen’s career in which he has not raced for ART GP. Before F3, he did two Formula Regional European Championship seasons with the team.

“We are very pleased to announce that Laurens van Hoepen will contest the 2026 F2 championship with Trident,” said the team’s manager Giacomo Ricci.

“He is a driver we’ve had the chance to get to know and appreciate in the final part of this season. After his positive debut in Baku, van Hoepen immediately felt comfortable with the team. I am sure the Dutch driver has all the qualities required to do a great job with our technical staff and to compete in a highly competitive season.”

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Trident has announced that Laurens van Hoepen will remain part of its Formula 2 line-up for the last two rounds of the season.

The 20-year-old Dutchman made his championship debut with the team last time out in Baku, as Trident parted ways with its regular drivers and brought in Martinius Stenshorne and van Hoepen as replacements.

After being 20th fastest in qualifying, van Hoepen finished both races in 17th. His next F2 outing will be at Losail, on November 28-30, then the season finale at Yas Marina Circuit is on December 5-7.

“I can’t wait to get back on track, where consistency will be the key for me. My goal will be to be steadily fast,” said van Hoepen.

Before debuting in F2 he drove for ART Grand Prix in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, coming 12th in the standings with two sprint race podiums. That was two points and one place higher than in 2024, when he made the podium three times.

Trident’s team manager Giacomo Ricci said van Hoepen had a “positive debut in Baku” and that retaining him in its line-up is an “important and natural continuation” in which the team will have “the aim of helping him grow in the category and being consistently competitive”.

It is yet to be confirmed who will be van Hoepen’s team-mate. Stenshorne started off impresively on his debut by qualifying eighth, but only got 11 laps of racing action as he suffered two retirements.

In the preceding 11 rounds, Sami Meguetounif had scored two points and Max Esterson went points-free before the pair parted ways with Trident.

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Trident has announced it will field debutants Martinius Stenshorne and Laurens van Hoepen in this weekend’s Formula 2 round in Baku.

The team parted ways with its previous line-up of Sami Meguetounif and Max Esterson two days ago after the pair of rookies had scored just two points between them in 11 rounds.

It now brings in two drivers graduating from the FIA Formula 3 Championship, both of whom are only confirmed for one round, have never driven an F2 car and will be making their debuts on a street circuit they are totally new to.

“We are delighted to announce our agreement with Laurens van Hoepen and Martinius Stenshorne, two drivers of outstanding ability and great potential,” said Trident’s team manager Giacomo Ricci.

“Both have proven to be frontrunners this year and in previous seasons. Making their debut in Baku will certainly be a big challenge, as neither of them has experience with a F2 car or the circuit itself. We are fully focused on preparing for the event. At the same time, we want to sincerely thank Sami Meguetounif and Max Esterson, and wish them all the best in their future careers.”

Stenshorne has spent the last two years in F3 with Hitech GP, coming 18th in his rookie campaign and fifth this year with two victories and three other podiums.

“I’m very proud to be joining Trident for the next round of the FIA F2 championship in Baku,” said the 19-year-old Norwegian.

“This is an exciting opportunity, and I can’t wait to get on track with the team on such a unique and challenging circuit. I will give it everything and try to learn as much as possible from this new experience.”

Van Hoepen has been a rival on the grid with ART Grand Prix, coming 13th in 2024 and 12th in 2025. He has five podiums from his two seasons there.

“I’m really looking forward to making my FIA F2 debut with Trident,” the 20-year-old Dutchman commented.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to step up to the next category at such a technical and spectacular circuit like Baku. It will be a valuable experience that I can build on for the future.”

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Trident has announced it has parted ways with its two Formula 2 drivers, and is believed to already have replacements lined up for the next round in Baku.

The early termination of Max Esterson and Sami Meguetounif’s contracts was made official via a statement posted to social media today, following media reports that the pair were on their way out imminently.

“By mutual agreement with Sami Meguetounif and Max Esterson, we have decided to part ways before the end of the 2025 season. Thank you, Sami and Max, for your commitment. It has been a pleasure to have had them both on our team and we wish them all the best for their future,” read Trident’s statement.

With three rounds to go, Trident is currently 11th and last in F2’s teams standings with just two points from the first 21 races.

Meguetounif is responsible for both of those points, having finished 10th in the Imola and Red Bull Ring feature races, while Esterson’s sole top-10 result was 10th place in the Red Bull Ring sprint race and therefore did not earn him any points.

The rookie pair sit 19th and 21st in the standings, both having stepped up to F2 after one year in the FIA Formula 3 Championship, with only one other driver this having gone points-free.

“This F2 season hasn’t delivered the results our team’s effort and preparation have deserved,” said Esterson. “There’s been hard work from every member of the team, but it hasn’t yet converted into the consistent pace or points we all expected and need.

“That’s tough to accept, but stepping up to this level was always part of a plan to gain experience at highest level of junior single seater racing. Even if it didn’t produce the results I wanted, I showed that on occasion I could run on pace when everything was working well.”

The American driver added: “I hope to find the right opportunity to be back on the F2 grid later this season if seat opens up in somewhere, and while my focus is set on returning to FIA Formula 2 in 2026, if we are unable to find a competitive spot in F2 we will be well prepared to pursue almost any of the world’s other top-level racing series.”

With the F3 season having concluded at Monza, several drivers can be expected to make the step up to F2 over the last three rounds of that championship, as happened last year.

Two F3 racers to have been linked with taking over the Trident seats for Baku are 19-year-old Norwegian and McLaren Formula 1 junior Martinius Stenshorne and 20-year-old Dutchman Laurens van Hoepen, according to reports by GPblog.

Stenshorne has spent the last two years in F3 with Hitech GP, coming 18th in his rookie campaign and fifth this year with two victories and three other podiums.

Van Hoepen has been a rival on the F3 grid with ART Grand Prix, coming 13th in 2024 and 12th in 2025. He has five podiums from his two seasons there.

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Photos: Formula Motorsport Ltd & Red Bull

Alex Dunne has been disqualified from second place and Nikola Tsolov has been disqualified from victory in Formula 2 and Formula 3’s feature races at the Red Bull Ring.

Both drivers have lost their podium results due to the same technical infringement, relating to front plank thickness.

Wear during the race led to the plank on Dunne’s car being below the minimum thickness of four millimetres at two of the three areas where measurements are taken, and his disqualification promotes Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli and DAMS’ Jak Crawford to second and third.

Dunne’s loss of 18 points also means he goes from being six behind MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor, who he lost the championship lead to in the feature race, to now being 24 down on him. Crawford and Fornaroli are third and fourth in the standings, and are now two and four points behind Dunne respectively.

F2’s stewards also handed Van Amersfoort Racing’s John Bennett a 10-second penalty and two penalty points post-race for contact with Prema’s Sebastian Montoya at turn three.

Campos Racing’s Arvid Linbdblad and Pepe Marti both got two penalty points in addition to the 10s penalties they received in-race for collisions with MP’s Oliver Goethe and ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins respectively.

There are title fight implications from the post-race penalties handed out in the FIA F3 Championship too.

Tsolov had finished over six seconds clear of the pack for his third win of the season and to close to within one point of Trident’s Rafael Camara in the title fight.

The minimum thickness for the front plank in F3 is 4.5mm in F3, but 4mm readings are accepted when wear is taken into account. However one side was found to be below that on Tsolov’s car, and Campos “noted that a section of the plank was missing at the edge on the same side that was found to be noncompliant”.

They believed the impact that would have caused that would damage would have also contributed to it being worn down further on that side, but could not provide evidence of an event in which that damage was picked up.

Hitech GP’s Martinius Stenshorne is the new winner of the feature race, with MP’s Tim Tramnitz and Campos’s Mari Boya completing the podium. Tramnitz is now Camara’s closest title rival, 24 points behind Camara and four ahead of Tsolov. Stenshorne is fourth in the standings, 22 points behind Tsolov.

AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides and VAR’s Theophile Nael enter the top 10, and therefore earn points, after ART GP’s Laurens van Hoepen was disqualified from ninth place due to post-race readings revealing three of his tyres to be under the minimum pressure allowed.

AIX Racing’s Nicola Marinangeli, who finished 27th on-the-road, received 10s in penalties for exceeding track limits five times and Hitech’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr was fined €500 (£427) for not re-attaching his steering wheel after exiting his car in parc ferme post-race.

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Laurens van Hoepen will stick with ART Grand Prix for his second season in FIA Formula 3 next year.

The 19-year-old had a campaign of two halves as a rookie, finishing second and taking fastest lap on his championship debut and following that up two further podiums in the next three sprint races. But he only finished higher than eighth once in the second half of the season and fell to 13th in the standings.

At the end of 2023 he contested his first races in a F3 car, coming 10th in the FIA F3 World Cup-awarding Macau Grand Prix.

: “I am very excited to continue with ART GP for the 2025 season,” said the Dutchman. “We have built a strong foundation together this year, and I feel ready to take on the new challenges that the next era of F3 will bring. The team has been incredible in supporting my development, and I am confident that we can achieve great things together in 2025.”

Before F3, van Hoepen had only raced in Formula Regional cars. He first got experience of them with Ultimate Cup Series outings, then got two podiums from two years in the European championship and a win and four other podiums from two outings in Oceania.

“We are delighted to continue our collaboration with Laurens van Hoepen as we enter the exciting new era of Formula 3 in 2025,” ART GP boss Sebastien Philippe commented.

“Laurens has shown great promise and dedication in his first season with ART, and we are confident that together we can achieve even greater success next year.”

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

While Gabriel Bortoleto charged from 22nd on the grid to win the Formula 2 feature race at Monza, Laurens Van Hoepen matched that progress in Formula 3.

The ART Grand Prix climbed from 29th on the grid on Sunday morning to eighth at the finish – without the benefit of a pit-stop. After the race, he told Formula Scout about his “amazing race”.

“It was very fun. Of course, you don’t want to start so far back but seeing the circumstances, I still had a lot of fun and overtaking almost every lap just was really exciting,” he said, still smiling broadly from his afternoon’s work.

Making up 21 places in 22 laps, of which three were run behind the safety car, required some aggressive moves at different corners around the track.

“I would say the first chicane was nice, but I also did some moves into Ascari. I had a move into Parabolica. The second chicane was working well and I think I did a move around the outside in Lesmo 1. So, I had some fun all around the track.”

When the safety car made its first appearance on lap 6, he had already gained 10 positions, but then a storming restart took him past four more cars on the first racing lap.

It wasn’t all plain sailing, as he had to pass and repass both Max Esterson and Joshua Dufek.

In the cut and thrust of an F3 midfield, it is easy to lose a wing or make a mistake, so how did he manage to stay out of trouble?

“It’s so tricky. You have to be so aware of everything around you and you have to really find your way through and just be at the right place at the right time. You can be very unlucky, but luckily we didn’t have any issues.”

He crossed the line in 10th, but penalties for Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Gabriele Mini moved him up to eighth in the final classification to give him four points and 13th in the final standings.

Van Hoepen was one of the surprise performers of the 2024 F3 season, taking three sprint race podiums in the first four rounds and even an outright pole position at the Hungaroring, but feels that with better luck “we could have easily been inside the top eight in the championship.

“I think it was a good season [but] it’s just a shame that you can’t really see how fast we were when you look at the [points] because we were super quick all season long. [We were] unlucky in Budapest, unlucky in Barcelona [and] Silverstone didn’t really go our way and we lost a lot of points because of that.

“At least the pace was there. The luck will come eventually, but if you’re not fast, you’re not going to achieve much anyway. So at least we’re fast and then we can build on that.”

And his post-season plans? “Some golf, some tennis, lots of sports, but also hopefully a lot of driving as well.”

The post Van Hoepen charges into points in F3 finale with “amazing race” appeared first on Formula Scout.

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

ART Grand Prix driver Laurens van Hoepen has been disqualified from the FIA Formula 3 feature race at the Hungaroring after his car was found to be underweight.

When weighed post-race, van Hoepen’s car was found to be 694kg, which is four kilogrames below the minimum weight.

Van Hoepen had finished second, and the loss of 18 points from being disqualified also means he drops fom ninth to 10th in the championship standings.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Noel Leon now takes the runner-up trophy from the race and Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli finishes third, closing up the title battle. The three extra points Fornaroli earns means he is now only seven behind Prema’s championship leader Gabriele Mini.

Another driver to be penalised after F3’s feature race was Jenzer Motorsport’s Matias Zagazeta, who was handed a five-place grid penalty and two penalty points for causing a collision with Prema’s Arvid Lindblad during the race. Zagazeta now has four points on his race license.

The collision with Lindblad took place at turns three and four, and while they were fighting over 17th place with three laps to go. Lindblad was on the inside line at turn three and ahead at the apex of the corner. Therefore stewards deemed he “had right to the racing line at the exit of the corner” where Zagazeta went off. They also determined he left enough room for Zagazeta to rejoin safely, and so attributed blame to Zagazeta for the subsequent contact at turn four that led to both retiring.

“Having considered the matter extensively, the Stewards determined that Car 19 [Zagazeta] should have conceded and backed-off in order to avoid the collision. The Stewards find that Car 19 was wholly responsible for the incident and impose a drop of five positions in the starting grid of the next race and two penalty points,” read their statement.

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

ART Grand Prix’s Laurens van Hoepen claimed pole position in a Formula 3 quaifying session at the Hungaroring that ended with red flags.

Van Amersfoort Racing duo Sophia Floersch and Noel Leon were fastest at first in the half-hour session, although it was not until a few minutes later that a representative pace was set and AIX Racing’s trio of Joshua Dufek, Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Nikita Bedrin went ot the top with laps in the 1m34s.

They and almost everyone else then headed back to the pits, leaving only Trident’s drivers on track nine minutes in. Soon they pitted too, and after a few minutes the Hungaroring was bursting with activity again.

Van Hoepen went to the top after 17 minutes, setting a 1m34.316s to nudge ahead of Dufek by 0.098 seconds, with Hitech GP’s Luke Browning and MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz going third and fourth fastest.

Leon then bettered van Hoepen by 0.142s, but he only held provisional pole for less than half a minute before Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli set a 1m34.173s. His team-mate Santiago Ramos jumped up to third with a 1m34.288s, set with 10 minutes to go, then the track became quieter as drivers returned to the pits.

Van Hoepen reclaimed top spot in the final minute, setting a 1m33.935 to go fastest by 0.233s over team-mate Nikola Tsolov. Red flags then waved as Browning spun into the barriers exiting turn 11, denying several drivers a shot at pole since they were improving when the session was stopped.

Browning himself ended qualifying in seventh, with Prema duo Gabriele Mini and Arvid Lindblad – the top two drivers in the points table – down in 15th and 22nd.

Post-session investigations resulted in Browning having his fastest lap deleted for causing red flags. His second-best effort was good enough to be 15th fastest in the final classification.

Dufek was disqualified from sixth place as he and his car were found to be 1.5kg underweight, while Piotr Wisnicki and Kacper Sztuka were handed three-place grid penalties for impeeding Dino Beganovic and Sebastian Montoya.

As a result of the penalties, Bedrin and Beganovic move into the top 12, with the latter starting the sprint race from reversed-grid pole.

Qualifying results

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Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Laurens van Hoepen claimed his second FIA Formula 3 podium in Melbourne, making it two out of two in sprint races, but it was not an easy one for him.

The ART Grand Prix driver started from reversed-grid pole and led early on in the race. He exchanged first place several times with Martinius Stenshorne between laps three and five, before the Hitech GP driver broke away.

“I would say probably already in the beginning of the race, when I saw that Martinius was already so close to me behind, I knew I was in for a tough race,” said van Hoepen. “I was really struggling to stay in front, and after he overtook me I was really struggling also to stay behind. So from that point on, I knew it was going to be tough.”

Visible graining, especially in his rear-left tyre, caused a drop in van Hoepen’s performance. The Dutchman was then overtaken by Prema’s Arvid Lindblad on lap nine of 20, but unlike his team-mates he would not fade away and finished 1.958 seconds behind the winner.

“I would say really from the point that Arvid started catching, it was really, really hard. Like I wasn’t sure how it was going to play out, but I knew it was going to be really tough towards the end. And then at one point from like mid to end of the race, I started to get a better feeling again. And I actually thought ‘oh, actually, it’s not done yet’, like I could fight back. So, yeah, it was a decent end.”

Converting reversed-grid poles into sprint race podiums is not enough for the rookie, who has finished no higher than 13th in a feature race so far.

“I don’t want to lose positions in the race, you know? So I’m not too happy about that, but it’s definitely a working point. So to really work in the races to make sure we can actually hold on to pole positions. I wasn’t too happy with the qualifying in general yesterday, so that’s why I had to start on pole today. And not on pole tomorrow, for example, which was maybe a bit far, but I think when later in the season we can do a better job in qualifying, it will be better for the race on Sunday.”

Notwithstanding, the start to life in F3 has been a step forward from his two Formula Regional European Championship seasons where he scored just two podiums. Van Hoepen acknowledged that F3’s car is an influental factor.

“I would say that this F3 car suits me better than everything I’ve driven before because there is a lot more downforce in this car than anything else that I’ve driven. And that suits me better than everything else. So I really like this car. For sure there’s still a lot to learn about this car, some tricks and stuff that I could do better, but overall it suits me well and I really enjoy driving [it].”

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