January 22, 2026 | News | Formula Winter Series
It will be the fourth season for the Formula Winter Series, and the combination of teams and drivers points to a highly-competitive fight for the overall championship, rookie standings and teams’ title.
Reigning teams’ champions US Racing, who also clinched the 2025 drivers’ title with Gabriel Gomez, are once again the most numerous team on the grid. No fewer than six entries will represent the German outfit.
Of the six entries, two drivers arrive with F4-level championships already under their belt. Australia’s Noah Killion will be looking to build upon a successful year in his homeland, in which he won the 2025 AU4 title. Equally, Ary Bansal will be a favourite to land on his feet, after winning both the 2025 GB4 and British F4 Challenge Cup championships. The Indian racer was recently endorsed by the first Formula One driver from his homeland, Narain Karthikeyan.
The remaining US Racing entries will be piloted by FWS returnees Oleksandr Savinkov and Ludovico Busso, as well as Roman Kamyab and Arjen Kräling.
Rodin Motorsport returns to the Formula Winter Series for the first time since 2024, and will feature one of the most coveted talents in the Rookie class. Dries Van Langendonck, who is backed by McLaren’s Driver Development Programme, made his debut in Formula 4 at the tail-end of 2025, winning a race and scoring a pole position in his first weekend.
Alfie Slater joins Rodin Motorsport for 2026, after spending two years honing his wheel-to-wheel racecraft in the Ginetta Junior Championship, where he took three victories in 2025. Meanwhile, South Africa’s Ethan Lennon will be the youngest driver on the grid, as he celebrates his 15th birthday today (Thursday), in the midst of the first 2026 Formula Winter Series tests and his Rodin debut.
Van Amersfoort Racing welcomes 2025 Rookie class runner-up Thomas Bearman into the fold for the new FWS season. After taking a podium during the final weekend of the 2025 Formula Winter Series, and his first F4 win over summer, Bearman will be looking to challenge for victories and the title during this campaign.
Aleksander Ruta will look to take strides in his sophomore FWS season and his second year with VAR, while Brazil’s Pedro Lima makes his European racing debut with the Dutch squad. Red Bull Junior Team member and 2025 Ginetta Junior Champion Rocco Coronel will be keen to impress as he joins VAR to embark upon his first championship-long campaign in single-seaters.
Fellow Red Bull Junior Team member Chiara Bättig joins Campos Racing, alongside FWS returnees and Campos F1 Academy drivers Alisha Palmowski and Rafaela Ferreira. Jenzer Motorsport brings a quartet of drivers to the grid; returnee Teo Borenstein, Swiss karting champions Levi Arn and Georgiy Zasov, plus Lithuanian talent Markas Silkunas.
AS Motorsport brings Ginevra Panzeri and Viktor Poulsen under its own banner, and will also lend support to Mathilda Paatz’s eponymous Mathilda Racing entry. CRAM Motorsport offers a compelling trio of rookies, in the form of Oscar Repetto, Samuel Ifrid and Max Kammerlander, who join Andre Rodriguez in the line-up.
AKM Motorsport brings three cars for Vittorio Orsini, Abdullah Kamel and Felipe Reijs. Renauer Motorsport will once again field a single car, this time for single-seater debutant Tomas Rudokas, who shifts to F4 after a year of GT racing.
With an expanded five-round calendar, and a hugely-competitive field featuring drivers from 16 nations, the imminent start of the 2026 Formula Winter Series promises intrigue and a closely-fought championship fight. The season opener and all subsequent rounds of FWS will stream live on the Winter Series YouTube channel, while local fans are able to purchase affordable tickets for all events.
