Photo: F4 UAE
R-ace GP has signed Tuukka Taponen for campaigns in Formula Regional’s European and Middle East championships next year.
The 17-year-old Finn is the French team’s firt signing for 2024 and is stepping up from Formula 4, a category in which he has been a winner in multiple continents over the past three years.
Across 2021 and ’22 he did three rounds of his home series Formula Academy Finland and took seven victories from seven starts, then for 2023 he joined Prema for a triple campaign on multiple continents.
He began the year winning four races in F4 United Arab Emirates and becoming championship runner-up, then in Italian F4 he won once en route to fifth in the standings and in Euro 4 he also came fifth in the points table but with two third places being his best results.
- Scout Report: Tuukka Taponen
Taponen became a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy in November 2022 after winning its World Scouting Final. That year his focus had been racing OK karts, and he had been world championship runner-up, third in WSK’s Euro Series and fourth in its Super Master Series. He also came ninth in the world championship for KZ shifter karts.
The year before as an OK karting rookie he had been world champion, won WSK’s Open Cup, come fourth in the Champions of the Future series as well as in WSK SMS and its Champions Cup.
Preparations for Taponen’s step up to FRegional have already begun, since he contested four of FREC’s post-season tests last month with R-ace.