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For most, a career at the pinnacle of world motorsport is nothing more than a pipedream.
Talent alone is not enough. A driver needs to be well-funded and connected to land the right drive at the right time, and even then, there is no guarantee.
With just 20 seats available on the F1 grid and only one or two of those open to a rookie driver each year, competition at the top of the pyramid is ferocious, and timing critical.
On top of that, each team has its own criteria as it seeks to satisfy marketing ambitions, sponsor obligations, nationalism, and more.
Even then, a driver may be excluded from consideration simply because they’re aligned with a rival through the various junior academies that now exist.
Combined, the odds of success are incredibly low, and yet dozens of youngsters chase the F1 dream every year regardless of the eye-watering costs involved.
And with over 200 drivers on the ladder at any one time, it makes the F1 feeder industry worth more than $3.6 billion annually – excluding what is spent in karting (which can easily climb into the six-figure range).
Optional – Formula Vee, $30,000 (Age 14)
Entirely optional but can begin to lay the foundations of car racing early while still competing in karts, Formula Vee is an excellent starting point. Low-powered and highly competitive it can teach race craft and the fundamentals of car set-up in a low-cost, low-pressure arena.
Optional – Formula Ford, $125,000 (Age 14)
Another potential starting point for aspiring racers, at a higher price point, is Formula Ford. Once the breeding ground for young talent its relevance on the F1 pathway has diminished. “I think Formula Ford can definitely be a good pathway towards Supercars,” Oscar Piastri told Speedcafe in 2021. “It’s still an open wheel but I think it’s got much more resemblance to a Supercar than an F1 car. I think if you’re going to try and get a single seater career, as a professional, you just have to come to Europe.” Nonetheless, it remains a viable category for learning race craft and car set-up before a driver is old enough to step onto the F1 ladder system proper.
Optional – Formula 4 Australia, $250,000 (Age 15)
A useful step to provide some grounding at a comparatively low cost for drivers with a view to go higher. The spec nature of Formula 4 makes the lessons learned on home soil transferable, making the jump overseas slightly less intimidating. Under its previous guise, Liam Lawson used it as part of his progression to F1, gaining seat time and meaningful experience before landing in Europe where he progressed up the ladder to F1.
Step 1 – Formula 4/GB3, $1,200,000 (Age 16-17)
Realistically, this is the start of the journey to F1 proper. Formula 4 is the established bottom rung when it comes to open-wheel racing. There are multiple competitions with those in Europe preferred; the Italian and German (Euro 4) competitions being especially popular though the British series is also noteworthy. Well financed drivers will race in multiple competitions, the focus less on results and more on seat time. In the UK, and half a step up from F4, is GB3. What was once the British Formula 3 Championship now sits somewhere in between F4 and F3, and is a similar dollar value – a good option for those starting a little later. Patrick Heuzenroeder spent a year in British Formula 4 last year, and has this year stepped up to GB3, and is looking at a second season in the category next year.
Step 2 – EuroFormula Open/Formula Regional, $1,750,000 (Age 17-18)
An entirely optional category as a driver could simply move from Formula 4 to FIA Formula 3, though that is a reasonably significant jump and an intermediary step of some sort is recommended. EuroFormula uses machinery akin to Formula 3 but without quite the same price point, while competing on many of the same tracks. That said, it’s not the same competition it once was and there are good alternatives at this level, namely a regional Formula 3 competition such as the European Championship, where the premise (and broad cost) is the same. It was the EuroFormula pathway Christian Mansell followed ahead of his graduation to Formula 3 last season. “Now they’ve gone to the less aero dependent, more power dependent kind of era,” Mansell told Speedcafe in 2022. “The biggest change was actually corner speed. It’s slower in the corners, but it’s got so much more acceleration, power, torque, everything.”
Step 3 – Formula 3, $2,400,000 (Age 17-20)
The ‘formal’ starting point of a driver’s journey to F1 proper begins with Formula 3. Owned by Formula 1, it runs as a support category to the world championship with a 10-round competition running from February to September. The world’s premier junior teams all operate three cars and most F1 junior programmes field drivers in the championship. Being a more global competition, prices do increase, but so too does the opportunity for exposure. Due to the competitive nature of the championship, with 30 drivers and greater freedoms in terms of car set-up, it’s typically a two-year programme; the first to learn the ropes and the second to establish credentials.
Step 4 – Formula 2, $4,000,000 (Age 19-23)
One step below F1, Formula 2 is arguably the finishing school for junior drivers, where they begin to show their real potential. Like F3, it’s typically a two-year deal in which, if a driver is any good, they’ll challenge for the odd win in the first year before mounting a challenge for the championship in year two. More than that is wasteful; the expectation in a third year is that a driver must win the title, but even then the merit associated with that is diminished because it took them longer – precisely the logic Jack Doohan applied when not returning for a third year in 2024. In terms of exposure, it is the best junior category on offer and anyone who aspires to be anyone in motorsport races in F2 at some point.
The Ultimate Cost
Combined, from Formula 4 at age 15, to a second year in Formula 2 around age 21, it’s perfectly reasonable to spend in excess of $16 million.
But that’s just the basics. In addition to those costs is travel and accommodation, which is not an insignificant figure, as well as testing (highly recommended), and hiring a trainer and manager, all of which come at a price.
There are ways to mitigate some of that; finding sponsors is an obvious one, so too is the idea of being picked up by an F1 academy programme.
While they’re not all the same, and some offer little to no meaningful value, under the right circumstances they can cover the cost of a junior driver’s career – usually in exchange for their services down the track (like Oliver Bearman with Ferrari, or Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes, or even Jack Doohan with Alpine).
For Australians, it is far more than just a financial sacrifice, as any youngster looking to chase the F1 dream has to move to Europe to make it happen.
And that comes with a human cost; the loss of one’s social network, isolation from their family, compromised schooling, not to mention the comforts of home at a formative and impressionable stage of life.
“It’s not just sacrifices from my point of view, but also my parents and my family,” explained Heuzenroeder when asked about the sacrifices by Speedcafe.
“I think Mum and Dad saw each other for like four weeks the whole year [last year] – because I was under 18, I had to have a parent with me the whole time.
“The sacrifices I made were just leaving school, leaving a social life behind – leaving my childhood, I suppose.
“This year, I’m on my own,” he added.
“I’m living with a family we met, so that’s nice, but Mum and Dad are back in Australia.
“I suppose the difference between me and a kid that lives in the UK and races in the UK is that they go back to their normal life every week, whereas I go back to my house and just start focusing on the next race weekend.
“It’s very different. Lots of sacrifices, financially as well, with the racing. Hopefully it all pays off.”
