
Photo: AIX Racing
The AIX Racing Formula 2 team will keep Cian Shields in its line-up for the 2025 season.
Scottish driver Shields has made a rapid climb through the single-seater ranks, making his F2 debut in what was just his third year in car racing when he joined AIX for the last two rounds of 2024.
Skipping Formula 4 altogether, he started his single-seater career in GB3 in 2022 with Hitech and came 13th in the standings, then switched to Euroformula Open for 2023 with Motopark and finished runner-up to Noel Leon in the championship after winning four races.
He rejoined Hitech to move into FIA Formula 3 last year, when a 14th-place finish in the Barcelona sprint race was his best result.
Taking over the AIX seat previously occupied by Taylor Barnard and then Niels Koolen, Shields finished just shy of the points in 11th in the feature race on his debut F2 weekend in Qatar. He otherwise finished 18th on his other three starts, and went on to do all three days of post-season testing in Abu Dhabi with the team.
The confirmation of Shields should put an end – for now – to speculation surrounding sportscar ace Nico Varrone, who had joined AIX for the final day of the Abu Dhabi test in the sister car of Joshua Duerksen. That test was surrounded by a social media campaign by Argentine fans, keen to see him return to single-seaters following the success of compatriot Franco Colapinto.
This week, 24-year-old former GB3 racer Varone was named as a hypercar driver in the World Endurance Championship for the Proton Competition team, and will share its Porsche 963 with Chilean ex-Euroformula racer Nico Pino and Porsche veteran Neel Jani. He will combine that drive with IMSA Endurance Cup outings for Corvette.
Three F2 seats remain unfilled at ART Grand Prix, Rodin Motorsport and Van Amersfoort Racing, as occupied by Victor Martins, Alex Dunne and Rafael Villagomez respectively in testing.