Feeder Series Weekly Recap: F3 testing, driver news and more
- Liam Ploetner
- 5 hours ago
- 4 min read
Written by Liam Ploetner
Welcome to Feeder Series Weekly Recap, a series bringing you all the news from the world of junior racing series. The Formula 3 grid for 2026 is nearing completion, with the announcement of two further names, and post-season testing commencing. DIVEBOMB recaps the news from the world of Feeder Series in the last week.
Kanato Le to ART Grand Prix for 2026
Kanato Le became the latest driver to join the Formula 3 grid for 2026, joining ART Grand Prix. He is the second driver to be confirmed for the French outfit after Polish driver Maciej Gładysz.
Le has raced with ART before, competing in Formula Regional this year with them as well as competing at Macau with them last year. The Japanese driver has eight points finishes this campaign.
“I’m super excited to be racing in FIA F3 next season with ART GP,” said Le. “I am really grateful for the opportunity they have given me to be able to race in this championship.
“It’s been a good year working with the team in FRECA this season, and I look forward to getting started in F3. I’d like to thank everyone who has helped me get to this point and trusted me. I will work hard with the team to achieve good results so I’m really looking forward to it.”
Le was the second driver announced for the French team, alongside Polish racer Maciej Gładysz, with the team yet to announce their third name for 2026.
F3 post-season testing in Jerez
The two days of post-season testing in Jerez for F3 have come and gone, with some interesting takeaways from the test.
There were two different sessions each day, with the best times coming in the morning session for every driver except for Gerrard Xie and Enzo Deligny on day one.
In terms of raw pace, it is only testing, but rookies such as Trident’s Freddie Slater and Matteo de Palo, MP Motorsport’s Mattia Colnaghi and Campos’ Ernesto Rivera are all impressing.
Experience did seem important, however, as returning drivers such as MP’s Alessandro Giusti and Tuukka Taponen, Campos’ Ugo Ugochukwu and Trident’s Noah Strømsted were quick.
On day one, Giusti led from Slater, Colnaghi, Van Amersfoort Racing (VAR)’s Jesse Carrasquedo, Taponen, Ugochukwu, Strømsted, Rivera, Rodin’s Christian Ho and de Palo.
In terms of teams getting to grips with the Jerez circuit, the quickest teams were MP (first, third and fifth), Trident (second, seventh and 10th) and Campos (sixth, eighth and 15th). On the other hand, Hitech TGR (21st, 25th, 27th), ART Grand Prix (19th, 24th and 28th) and AIX (17th, 18th, 29th) struggled a bit more.
There was the occasional stoppage on the track. Prema’s James Wharton stopped at turn 11, the Ayrton Senna Chicane, two hours into running in the morning session. Rivera had issues at turn 8, the Curva Aspar, in the afternoon session with 90 minutes of day one left.
However, the most important issue was mileage, not overall pace. MP led the way on mileage, completing 227 laps with their three drivers. Giusti in particular did 78 laps of the circuit, more than any other driver. By contrast, ART completed 139 laps of the circuit, with Kanato Le completing 37 laps, the lowest by nine laps.
Day two was a better indication of overall pace, and it seemed that Campos were the team who had adjusted best, with Ugochukwu and Rivera first and second. Teammate Theophile Naël struggled in comparison down in 22nd, but it was still a strong test for Campos. Trident (third, fifth, 15th) and Rodin (fourth, ninth and 14th) also had strong second days.
What was so interesting though, was that the bottom ten positions were made up of drivers from seven different teams. The three teams who had multiple drivers in the bottom ten were VAR (21st and 28th), DAMS (24th and 30th) and ART (23rd and 27th). This showed that the field spread was still small, emphasised by a 1.3 second gap between Ugochukwu and rookie DAMS driver Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi. Every driver set their best lap in the morning session.
The driver who won the honour of completing the most total laps was VAR’s Bruno del Pino, completing 93 laps over the two sessions on the second day. Taponen completed only 47 laps on the second day, which may be partly why he was 25th on day two compared to his strong day one. The team with the most mileage on day two was VAR, completing 273 laps compared to 160 laps for DAMS, with none of their drivers completing 60 laps or more.
Rivera had his second problem of the test down the main straight, bringing out the first of four red flags on the second day. The next two came in the final half hour of the morning session, as DAMS’ Gerrard Xie and Hitech’s Jin Nakamura both stopped, with the latter ending the morning session. The final red flag was for Kanato Le, who stopped at turn nine, the Curva Angel Nieto, in the afternoon session with 30 minutes left.
Overall, the driver with the most mileage over the two days was VAR’s Hiyu Yamakoshi, who put 157 laps on the board. The driver with the least amount of laps was DAMS’ Nicola Lacorte, who completed exactly 100 laps during the two day test.
In terms of teams, VAR completed the most laps with 463 and the team who completed the least was DAMS with 309 laps.
