What will F1 young driver academies look like in 2025?

By 2025, all the stables of Formula 1 – or almost – have their own young pilot academy in car. Only Racing Bulls (linked to Red Bull), Haas and Sauber do not have an academy as such, although they do support a driver in the F1 Academy (Rafaela Ferreira for Racing Bulls, Courtney Crone for Haas, Emma Felbermayr for Sauber). For the others, the presence of an academy has become essential, whether for sporting or financial reasons.

They all have their own specificities, their own method of operation… and also their own success rate, which is more or less high. Nevertheless, the academy has become a mandatory step to access Formula 1. The six rookies on the Formula 1 grid all went through an academy before accessing the premier category: Liam Lawson with Red Bull, Jack Doohan with Alpine, Andrea Kimi Antonelli with Mercedes, Gabriel Bortoleto with McLaren, Isack Hadjar with Red Bull and Oliver Bearman with Ferrari.

This season, as usual, it is Red Bull that has the most extensive academy with eleven drivers entered in single-seaters in 2025, including three drivers in Formula 2 (Arvid Lindblad, Oliver Goethe, Pepe Marti) and two Formula 3 (Nikola Tsolov, Tim Tramnitz). There is also a Frenchman in the Red Bull Junior Team with Jules Caranta, 3rd in F4 France in 2024, who will compete in the Eurocup-3 this season.

Jules Caranta is not the only Frenchman registered in an F1 team academy, since Alessandro Giusti is a member of the Williams Driver Academy. After two convincing seasons in FRECA, the 4 F2022 France champion moves up a level and will compete in the 2025 Formula 3 season with MP Motorsport. We can also add Dorian Pin to the list of French players present in an academy: the Francilienne, protégé of the Mercedes clan, will set off to attack the title in F1 Academy and will continue to learn the ropes in FRECA in 2025.

Alpine, for its part, has trimmed its numbers over the winter. Victor Martins, Nikola Tsolov, Kean Nakamura-Berta, Sophia Flörsh and Abbi Pulling all left the French academy during the off-season. Now, there are only six young drivers affiliated with the A fléché in single-seaters, including two in Formula 2: Gabriele Mini and Kush Maini.

Single seat
The composition of academies in 2025

Red Bull
🇬🇧 Arvid Lindblad (Formula 2)
🇩🇪 Oliver Goethe (Formula 2)
🇪🇸 Pepe Marti (Formula 2)
🇧🇬 Nikola Tsolov (Formula 3)
🇩🇪 Tim Tramnitz (Formula 3)
🇫🇷 Jules Caranta (Eurocup-3)
🇹🇭 Enzo Tarnvanichkul (Eurocup-3)
🇲🇽 Ernesto Rivera (Eurocup-3)
🇮🇪 Fionn McLaughlin (F4 Great Britain)
🇱🇧 Christopher El Feghali (F4 Spain)
🇦🇹 Niklas Schaufler (F4 Spain)

McLaren
🇮🇪 Alex Dunne (Formula 2)
???????? Ugo Ugochukwu (Formula 3)
🇮🇹 Brando Badoer (Formula 3)
🇳🇴 Martinius Stenshorne (Formula 3)
🇬🇧 Ella Lloyd (F1 Academy)

Ferrari
🇸🇪 Dino Beganovic (Formula 2)
🇧🇷 Rafael Câmara (Formula 3)
🇫🇮 Tuukka Taponen (Formula 3)
🇳🇱 Maya Weug (F1 Academy)
🇧🇷 Aurelia Nobels (F1 Academy)

Mercedes
(I.e. Noah Strømsted, 17 years old (Formula 3)
🇯🇲 Alex Powell (Regional Formula)
🇨🇳 Yuanpu Cui (F4 Great Britain)
🇬🇧 Ethan Jeff-Hall (F4 Great Britain)
🇫🇷 Doriane Pin (F1 Academy, FRECA)
🇦🇪 Rashid Al Dhaheri (FRECA)
🇫🇷 Andy Consani (F4 France)

Alpine
🇮🇹 Gabriele Mini (Formula 2)
🇮🇳 Kush Maini (Formula 2)
🇮🇹 Nicola Lacorte (Formula 3)
🇦🇪 Keanu Al Azhari (GB3)
🇸🇬 Kabir Anurag (F4 Italy)
🇳🇱 Nina Gademan (F1 Academy)

Aston Martin
🇺🇸 Jak Crawford (Formula 2)
🇨🇭 Tina Hausmann (F1 Academy)

Williams
🇬🇧 Luke Browning (Formula 2)
🇫🇷 Alessandro Giusti (Formula 3)
🇺🇸 Lia Block (F1 Academy)
🇺🇦 Oleksandr Bondarev (F4 Italy)

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