Many champions, one weekend: Stars of the future

Across this past weekend we’ve had the joy of watching some of the best young drivers in the world take their place in history after becoming champions in their respective series’ across the continent, but who are these future stars and what have they won?

Linus Granfors

Swedish teenager Granfors took the GB4 Championship title, seeing off Scottish driver Harry Burgoyne Jr and Alisha Palmowski, one of the most highly rated female drivers around at the moment.

Fortec Motorsport helped bring Granfors to the title as they have with multiple young drivers, and now Granfors can set his sights on the next step, up to GB3, where perhaps he can try to go one better than his brother Joel - now racing in America - who was series runner up in 2022.

Freddie Slater

We knew Freddie Slater was good, but what we didn’t anticipate was the young Brit winning Italian F4 - deemed the toughest F4 series to race in - in such impressive, dominating fashion.

Slater has won 13 of the 18 races in the series, with one round still remaining, and is over 100 points ahead of second place Hiyu Yamakoshi. It’s very possible Slater will step up to FIA F3 in 2025, given the stunning form of his season. All eyes on Slater.

Rafael Camara

Brazilian teenager Camara has been mentioned as a potential top quality driver for a while now, but he’s finally shown us what he is made of, taking the FRECA title after a ding dong battle with fellow Ferrari junior driver Tuukka Taponen and PREMA teammate James Wharton.

Since 2022, when Camara has entered a single seater series, he’s never finished lower than fifth overall and has been touted for a potential FIA Formula 2 seat in 2025, ‘skipping’ F3 as Kimi Antonelli and Joshua Durksen for 2024. Failing that, you’d expect in F3 he’d be right at the sharp end of the grid.

Louis Sharp

Louis Sharp has won back to back titles after winning British F4 last year and now taking the GB3 title ahead of John Bennett and Tymek Kucharczyk.

The young New Zealander has been super impressive and calm, and has been rumoured to have already tested F2 with Trident Racing machinery ahead of 2025. Another very special young talent.

A special shoutout to Brad Benavides too; the former F2 man has won the Euroformula Open Championship this weekend - his plans are unclear after F2 and F3 experience under his belt but it’s and impressive feat nonetheless!

📸 Image credits: Rodin Motorsport, PREMA Racing, Formula Motorsport, GB4 Championship.