10 future F1 champions to watch in 2024

1. Oliver Bearman

Age: 18

2023: 6th in F2

2024: Racing in F2 with Prema, F1 with Ferrari

You have definitely heard of Oliver Bearman now. He was on this list last year, but to remove him now would be madness. Even if you ignore Bearman’s extraordinary F1 debut with Ferrari in Saudi Arabia, the 18-year-old had already made a mark.

Aged 17 he very nearly won the F3 championship, at 18 he took four wins in his first F2 season. Eighth place overall does not do Bearman’s 2023 season justice, Victor Martins was the only debutant ahead of him, and Martin only won one race and is four years Bearman’s senior. Points in his F1 debut will ratchet up the attention, but with the support of Ferrari, it should help Bearman go from strength to strength.

2. Doriane Pin

Age: 20

2023: 9th in WEC LMP2, 9th in ELMS GTE

2024: F1 Academy with ART, WEC with Iron Dames

It would be very easy not to notice the impact that Doriane Pin has made over the last couple of years. Knowledge of her rise to stardom has been largely kept to those who monitor the world of sportscar racing closely. But let this be the season you notice the pint-sized French racer.

Being signed by Mercedes as not only the team’s representative in F1 Academy but also a junior driver was a notice to the world that Pin was going to make a mark. But her 2023 season, mixed between GTE racing in the European Le Mans Series and stellar stints in an underperforming Prema LMP2 car in the World Endurance Championship should have been enough. As I type this, Pin has just dominated the first weekend of F1 Academy’s second season. Only a slightly weird penalty precluded her from a significant lead in the championship. Fully expect her to be at the forefront of the rest of the season.

3. Gabriel Bortoleto

Age: 19

2023: 1st in F3

2024: Racing in F2 with Invicta Racing

Two wins at the start of the 2023 F3 season was enough to help propel Gabriel Bortoleto to a championship victory. Of course that wasn’t all the Italian-sounding Brazilian did in 2023. Four runner-up finishes showcased the kind of consistency that brings lower-formulae championship success.

Only twice did Bortoleto cross the line below 10th. Only once did he not finish a race. While speed is the first factor that all F1 teams look for, they are also very keen to see drivers who have sensible, perhaps one might say, older heads on them. 

Bortoleto is now part of McLaren’s junior programme and has already set his stall out for 2024 with pole in his first-ever F2 qualifying session. It will be interesting to see how he converts his proven consistency and speed into higher-level results.

4. Kacper Sztuka

Age: 18

2023: 1st in Italian F4, 1st Formula Winter

2024: Racing in F3 with MP Motorsport

Kacper Sztuka won eight of the last nine rounds of the Italian F4 Championship in 2023 and then went to Spain and won five of the six races he entered in the Formula Winter series. Before that, his rise has been steady rather than spectacular, but with two championships under his belt in a matter of months, it’s time for the young Pole to kick on.

MP Motorsport has a good history of taking first-timers in F3 through their opening season, and Sztuka will be hoping that he can show the same kind of gradual progression through the 2024 season as he did previously. There shouldn’t be massive amounts of pressure on the 18-year-old either given his steady successes so far. That might be a perfect platform to move forward.

5. Paul Aron

Age: 20

2023: 3rd in F3

2024: Racing in F2 with Hitech Pulse Eight

Paul Aron was a Mercedes junior driver until the end of the 2023 season. The fact that that relationship ended in November last year seems rather harsh considering Aron had just finished third in F3 in his first year in the championship. 

Aaron hasn’t won a significant amount of championships in his career so far but has rarely finished a season below the top three. He has chosen to bounce to F2 rather than trying a second season in F3 and moves to Hitech Pulse-Eight after several seasons with Prema. The initial signs have been that Aron has yet again switched formulas with ease. The real test will come when we get into the real meat of a 28-race championship. But Aron has already shown that he can achieve results at tracks he has never raced at before, so there are very few reasons he can’t show Mercedes bosses they made a mistake.

6. Andrea Kimi Antonelli

Age: 17

2023: 1st in Formula Regional European Championship

2024: Racing in F2 with Prema

The other one that you’ve already heard of. Andrea Kimi Antonelli is not only a Mercedes junior driver, but he’s also team-mate to now F1 star Oliver Bearman at Prema. Aged 17 he makes even Bearman seem old. Max Verstappen-style Antonelli has jumped several rungs in the ladder, not bothering with F3 and flying straight into a hot F2 seat. And the steaks for the Italian are perhaps higher than any others. Do well this season and Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes seat might be his.

Antonelli has won four championships in just three seasons of car racing. The one year that he didn’t win anything it was possibly understandable – he was just 14 years old. Now he’s already shown signs of causing problems for the more established rivals in F2. Three top-ten finishes despite Prema struggling to get on top of the new F2 car is extremely impressive. Manage the pressure this year and F1 will be a doddle.

7. Alex Dunne

Age: 18

2023: 2nd in GB3

2024: Racing in F3 with MP Motorsport

The 2022 British F4 champion, 2022 Italian F4 runner-up and 2023 GB3 runner-up, Alex Dunne has impressed in his young career so far. This year he races in F3, and the biggest question straight away will be how he fairs after moving from Hitech, which brought all of his successes so far, to MP Motorsport.

But our question is whether Dunne can spread success more than he has done previously. Wins for the Irishman so far have come in streaks. Look at his driving history and you’ll find batches of two or three wins surrounded by lower finishes. Both his F4 championship in 2022 and GB3 runner-up spot in ‘23 were completed with sets of victories in small clusters. This year adapting to the F3 car quickly and finding consistency across a wider range of tracks then there shouldn’t be a limit for Dunne.

8. Bianca Bustamante

Age: 19

2023: 7th in F1 Academy

2024: Racing in F1 Academy with Prema

Perhaps the breakout star of the inaugural season of F1 Academy, Bustamante has become almost as much of a star for her social media presence as on-track antics. But don’t let that put any doubts about her talent in your head.

Aged just 18 Bustamante won two races in that first season in F1 Academy and was snapped up by McLaren as fast as they could following season end. This year she races with ART and, while she has made mistakes in the first two races, she has also shown speed and racecraft to get back through the pack. While Doriane Pin and Abbi Pulling dominated the results pages at Jeddah, we expect to see Bustamante in the running as the season gets busy. At 18, she has plenty of time to iron out the small errors.

9. Zane Maloney

Age: 20

2023: 10th in F2

2024: Racing in F2 with Rodin

The ending of the 2022 F3 championship was odd. Three drivers waiting to find out who had won after a red flag. Eventually, it went to Victor Martins, but by the tiniest of margins over Oliver Bearman in third and Zane Maloney in second. 

That was Maloney’s first season in F3, showing just how fast he can learn in a single year. He only finished in the points three times in the first half of the season, he only didn’t score twice in the second half – and won three races.

Getting used to F2 was perhaps a little more tricky for the driver from Barbados. Four podiums were scattered among a string of finishes outside of the points as Maloney struggled to get on terms with his more experienced team-mate Enzo Fittipaldi. 

But, 2024 has already started with a flyer. No one could touch him in Bahrain and two solid finishes to follow it up set him up for a title challenge. Clinch that title and there’s no reason the Sauber junior driver shouldn’t be looking at either Zhou Guanyou or Valtteri Bottas’ F1 seats.

10. Nolan Siegel

Age: 19

2023: 3rd in Indy NXT

2024: Racing in Indy NXT with HMD

Nolan Siegel is one of those drivers who did acceptably well in the first few rungs of the motorsport ladder but didn’t really pop up on radars. Best US F2000 season? Eighth. Indy Pro 2000? Fourth. But his first season in Indy NXT was a revelation. On the podium in his first two full-season races, he had won a race by round five and followed that up with another immediately.

In the first race of the 2024 season, Siegel led every single lap despite being faced with multiple restarts. He was as close to untouchable as spec-series racing will get. He’ll also make his IndyCar debut with a few rounds for Dale Coyne in 2024, the team with possibly the best reputation for nurturing young talent in IndyCar. All the stars seem to be aligning for Siegel, and he must be starting to attract admiring glances from Europe. The allure of an up-and-coming American driver is marketing gold.

What happened to our 2023 future F1 champions?

A mixed bag for the drivers we picked for 2023 glory. Victor Martins led the list, and he had an acceptable first season in F2. One win and seven further podiums secured the honour of best rookie status, but also the weight of title favourite status for 2024. His season so far has been nothing short of a disaster, so Martins, and Alpine, will be hoping he rights that soon.

Dino Beganovic had a good start to his F3 career, finishing sixth, and is set to return for another tilt at the third tier this year, but Hugh Barter struggled and ended up not completing his first season. He did test for Maserati in Formula E’s rookie test last year, but little has been seen since. 

Franco Colapinto moves up to F2 this season while remaining a Williams junior driver. The Argentine-born driver finished fourth in F3 last year, largely due to a very consistent set of performances, and remains with MP for another season as he moves up.

Nikola Tsolov and Oliver Goethe had what could be described as learning years in their first full F3 seasons. Tsolov struggled to find the speed that saw him dominate the Spanish F4 championship in 2022 and will need to show progress for 2024. Goethe took his first F3 victory, but at times found consistency difficult. 

Louis Foster continued his progress through the US ranks with fourth in his first season in Indy NXT and will remain in the series this year. Josh Pierson’s switch to single-seaters didn’t really bear much fruit, but he continued to claim successes in sportscars across both IMSA and WEC. Another season in NXT beckons and, aged just 18, it’s perhaps not quite time to say he should focus on sportscars just yet. 

Finally, Abbi Pulling could easily have made the 2024 list again. We’re not quite sure how she didn’t win a race in the first year of F1 Academy, but with that monkey now off her back after a win in the second race of 2024, we think she should kick on this year, sharing a great battle with Doriane Pin.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images