Photo: Formula Winter Series
Ary Bansal was fastest in Formula Winter Series pre-event testing at Algarve, which featured several new drivers.
For this weekend Rodin Motorsport has added a fourth car for new Mclaren Formula 1 junior Ella Stevens, who will be making her single-seater racing debut. She will race for Rodin in the all-female F1 Academy championship later this year.
Oscar Repetto is out and Alexandre Louza is in at Cram Motorsport, as had been planned, and Mathilda Racing has filled its second car with Italo-Venezuelan racer Emmilio Valentino Del Grosso. He came 18th in entry-level sportscar series Ginetta Junior in 2025.
Nicolas Cortes joins Jenzer Motorsport’s line-up for the rounds at Algarve and Motorland Aragon. The 15-year-old Mexican raced for the team last year, coming fourth in Formula 4 Central European Zone and cameoing in E4 and Italian F4.
Campos Racing fielded the all-female trio of Chiara Battig, Rafela Ferreira and Alisha Palmowski in FWinter Series’ season opener at Estoril, with Batting making the podium and Palmowski claiming a pole. Only Battig remains for Algarve, and will be joined by Zoe Florescu Potolea and Leon Hedfors. Megan Bruce has also been signed, but will not race until a later round.
Florescu won the junior classification in the third edition of the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission’s Ferrari Driver Academy-affiliated Girls on Track Rising Stars programme in 2023, when the Italo-Romanian was 13 years old.
The FDA-funded karting campaign that followed in 2023 lack strong results, but on KZ2 shifter karts last year (racing under an American license) she showed improved form and came 19th in WSK’s Super Master Series and 25th in the CIK-FIA World Championship. There were also F4 test outings with multiple teams.
Hedfors, 17, hails from Sweden and his career is guided by Infinity Sports Management. He began his F4 career last November in the United Arab Emirates-based Formula Trophy, coming 22nd in the standings.
US Racing’s Bansal set the pace in the first test session on Thursday. His final lap, a 1m49.773s, put him 0.051 seconds ahead of Dries Van Langendonck (Rodin) and 0.149s clear of Roman Kamyab (US).
Rocco Coronel (Van Amersfoort Racing) was 0.462s behind in fourth, with Noah Killion (US) and Alfie Slater (Rodin) the only other drivers within a second of Bansal.
All 33 drivers improved in session two. Bansal lowered the pace to 1m46.6s, leading Olexander Savinkov (US) by 0.573s, Van Langendonck by 0.692s, Coronel by 0.731s, Arjen Kraeling (US) by 0.884s and Ludovico Busso (US) by 0.952s.
In session three, Bansal was one of only four non-improvers. Coronel set a 1m46.703s to top the timesheet, pipping Bansal and Savinkov by 0.056s. Alexander Ruta (VAR) was also within 0.1s of Coronel, and half a second covered the top eight.
Excessive track limits violations and worse conditions meant laptimes were a lot slower on Friday. Van Langendonck’s 2m03.466s on his final lap was the fastest of session four, 0.377s clear of Bansal. He topped session five with a 1m59.579s, and had a 1.244s gap to Ethan Lennon (Rodin).
Slater posted a 2m06.111s in his final lap of testing to secure top spot in session six. Van Langendonck and Lennon were 0.136s and 0.369s behind, with Coronel trailing by 0.584s. Ruta, Teodor Borenstein (Jenzer) and Bansal were also within a second of Slater’s pace.