Photos: Dutch Photo Agency
With an F3 debut and a first FREC win, it’s been a good few weeks for former Ferrari junior James Wharton, and a sign that he’s flourishing in his new-found freedom – as he explains to Roger Gascoigne
Though his pace had been evident from the start of the year, James Wharton’s maiden Formula Regional European Championship victory takes a huge weight off his back, as he adapts to life outside the cosseted but pressurised world as a Formula 1 junior.
After three years under the wings of the Ferrari Driver Academy, Wharton is now steering his own course in FREC following two often frustrating seasons in Formula 4, as he explained to Formula Scout.
He says that he felt “it was best to part ways for my development and for what I wanted to do for 2024. I feel like it’s shown that I’ve made a step this year and I can sit here and say I’m quite happy with the decision and I feel like it’s been the best for me at that time.”
And the new Wharton certainly appears to cut a more relaxed and accessible figure, having sometimes given the impression in his F4 days of being overburdened by the expectations upon him, particularly given his age and inexperience.
On outright speed Wharton has often been a match for Formula Regional European Championship protagonists and former Ferrari junior stablemates, Rafael Camara and Tuukka Taponen, but a combination of ill-fortune and driver errors had kept him off the top step of the podium.
But last weekend at Mugello, it finally came together, as “we finally maximised the potential we’ve had all season so far.”
Despite an enormous 98-point deficit to championship leader Camara, he still has “full belief that I can turn this around,” now that he has finally got his first win under his belt.
The win “gives us a big boost, extra motivation, and a big push for the rest of the season,” he said after the race.
“It’s been quite tough, but I feel I have to take the positives. I’m happy that I can go into each weekend knowing I’ll be at the front, on pace and I just need to put the weekend together,” he told Formula Scout before his triumph in Tuscany.
Wharton joined the FDA after winning the inaugural Ferrari Scouting Camp at the end of 2020 at the age of just 14. Around the same time, he was signed to Nicolas Todt’s All Road Management stable. After spending his first year as a Ferrari junior in karting in 2021, he moved up to single-seaters with Prema in 2022.
Without Ferrari he would not be where he is now, and he is aware of the debt he owes to his former mentors.
“I can’t thank Ferrari enough for what they did. I was an Australian driver that was not really known in the paddock at that point because it was so early on in my career in Europe.
“They helped me through karting [and for] the step up into formulas. It’s still the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And it’s something that I will always treasure.
“I take confidence in knowing I was good enough to be chosen. I won the scouting camp on merit. I did everything that I needed to do to get there. So, I was super, super happy to be there, and I will never, ever have a bad thing to say about Ferrari,” he says.
Nevertheless, at the end of last year the two parties announced that Wharton would be leaving the programme.
For Wharton, who recently turned 18, the move appears to have given him more freedom, allowing him to show more of his natural personality as well as greater maturity, and “to try and learn a bit more about myself,” as he puts it.
“It’s probably just being a little bit more comfortable in my way of working, for my age and how I was maturing,” he reflects. “I felt I needed to do my own thing for a little bit. To understand what is best for James and what does James need to do to perform at his best.”
Beganovic, Weug, Wharton, Taponen & Camara go skiing
Off track, his life has changed as well. After sharing a flat with fellow Ferrari juniors Dino Beganovic and Maya Weug in Maranello, he has now moved back to his family’s apartment between Milan and Venice, “about 40 minutes drive from Prema. I’ve lived here already eight years, so it’s basically my home base, which is quite good because it’s so close to the team. So the perfect spot, let’s say.”
Having been a permanent presence at this side through his years in Europe, Wharton’s father has also stepped back, although he will try to fly in when he can to support his son.
“He was always here, [just] a two-hour drive away which helped, because being on the other side of world is always hard but for this year, I feel like he’s been able to take a step back as well and with me turning 18 it’s time to start doing things by myself and be left to make my own decisions.”
Being on his own has meant learning to cope in the kitchen as well, now he no longer has “Maya [Weug] cooking my meals. Now I’m doing it all myself so had to learn how to make some good meals so Deliveroo is not the number one priority anymore,” he says, joking that “pasta is my specialty. Like seven other billion people in the world!”
Stepping up to F4 in 2022 Wharton was immediately under pressure to perform as Ferrari’s new starlet, particularly with Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Camara in the same garage.
“I knew I was on the back foot going into 2022, even though I had so many things behind me,” he says. “I didn’t have the testing, I didn’t have the experience of Kimi [Antonelli] or Rafa.
“Going up against Kimi Antonelli in F4 of your first year is, I think, the hardest thing anyone can do in formula. He’s a very good driver. Maybe in other categories he’s beatable, but in F4 he’s the best that there will ever be, I think.
Photo: F4 UAE
“So, to go against him in my rookie season was not easy, especially with the expectations that people had. So of course, at the end of the year when you haven’t performed like people expected, obviously it’s hard going into the next year.”
After his difficult debut season in Europe, holding off then-fellow Ferrari junior Taponen to win the F4 United Arab Emirates title, provided welcome confirmation “that what I’m doing is working”.
“UAE was just a big boost of knowing I am a driver that is fighting at the front, and I am a winning driver. I can win championships. I’ve always known that since karting, but it was good to be able to do it in formula as well to show people.”
A lack of self-confidence has never been his problem, and while he never doubted himself, “because I knew I was good enough and I knew with the right preparation I could be at the front as well, UAE was just, let’s say, a reassurance.”
Success in the Middle East may have been his “biggest achievement,” but he was unable to translate it into a sustained championship challenge in Europe, although fourth in Italy and second in Euro-4 are hardly shabby results.
At Spa, “my best weekend of last year on real pace” he lost points “not from losing the race [but] just for having a half a race. Then there were moments throughout the season which I couldn’t control. I lost the win at Paul Ricard from a fuel pump failure on the last lap of the race.”
Although he feels that he “didn’t make huge mistakes in 2023, like I didn’t have any crashes or make any stupid manoeuvres, the result at the end of the year wasn’t what I wanted, especially after UAE.
“Expectations go up as soon as you know that you can win championships. To only be fourth in Italian – we weren’t happy. That’s not why we’re there. But the right people knew how I performed; the people inside the teams, the managers, the team owners knew what kind of year I had on paper.”
Photo: ACI Sport
Wharton did finish the year on a high, as runner-up to Ugo Ugochukwu in the inaugural Euro 4 series, demonstrating, he believes that “when I didn’t have failures or problems, I delivered when I could.”
For 2024, Wharton’s management team at All Road toured the paddock, both in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine and FIA Formula 3, to find the best available seat. Formula Scout understands that he had a back-up deal lined up with another FREC team but his favoured option had always been to stay with Prema for his graduation.
Being able to stay with Prema “was probably one of main factors to do a second year of F4. During last year it was a very clear target to be in FREC with Prema and stay in what I like to call my family, because I’m so comfortable [here],” he explains.
“There were obviously discussions with different categories, different teams, but you always have your plan A or the thing that you want the most.
“In my head, my aim was to perform enough to make sure I had the best opportunity for FREC for 2024 and to have the confidence from Rene [Rosin, Prema’s team principal]. It was quite simple in my head of what the goal was and what the reasons were for what I was doing.”
“Going into the FREC season, the most important part from everyone’s perspective is making sure you’re qualifying at the front. That was meant to be the 100% of the championship. If you could qualify well, you would be in a good position.
“The qualifying has been, I think, probably the best I’ve ever had in my career up-to-date. I’ve been one of the fastest on track at all times, in any conditions, so qualifying wise, I can’t be happier right now,” he says.
Indeed, in FREC’s split qualifying sessions, he has topped his group four times, matching the tally of Camara and Taponen, the top two in the standings. Indeed, on the four occasions Wharton and Camara been drawn in the same group their qualifying head-to-heads are level at two each, something which “has given me even more confidence,” he says.
The races, on the other hand, had, until Mugello, been, by his own admission, “a bit up and down.”
“From a points or results point of view, it’s been underachieving massively and definitely not showing our true potential.
“It’s been hard for me to go out of the weekend knowing the potential we have, starting from pole, having good starts, doing everything right and then one little error or one little mechanical failure in qualifying puts me out for the race or puts me out for the weekend,” he says, reflecting on his season to-date.
While Camara or Taponen, once out in front, look unruffled and untouchable, with Wharton, there is always the nagging feeling that some danger lurks around the corner, whether mechanical or self-inflicted.
After Wharton beached his car in the gravel during Hockenheim practice, his watching father, fresh off an intercontinental flight, remarked to Formula Scout’s reporter watching trackside, “that’s typical James. Always making things harder for himself.”
A poor start, after beating Camara to pole by 0.16s, and then a first lap incident put him out of the second Hockenheim race, and then he threw away a possible victory in the wet at Zandvoort, having again started from pole.
“It was just a mistake from my side, something that I feel like I’ve apologised more than I possibly could have because it was something that was so silly, so small. I had the gap. I was not really in the mindset of needing to do a lap record, just making sure I could maintain the gap after lap one. It was just a misjudgment in the middle of the [banked Hugenholtzbocht] corner.”
“I was using a different line in testing, so I tried to do the same, but the track conditions were a little bit different. It was just a mistake and [putting] the tyre where it shouldn’t be, we all know white lines don’t work in the rain, so it wasn’t the most amazing thing I could have done, but we have to move forward,” he reflects honestly, again reflecting the new-found maturity in his attitude.
Between those two rounds, Wharton suffered a huge crash in qualifying at the fearsome Raidillon corner at Spa-Francorchamps, a circuit where he won twice last season in Italian F4.
“I had the suspension break at the top of Eau Rouge when the compression came, because obviously there’s a lot of compression going up a hill that big,” he remembers. “Especially slicks in the rain didn’t make the impact any slower!”
He clouted the barriers on the outside of the corner, ripping off his right front wheel and rebounding across the circuit, fortunately without being hit by following cars.
Amazingly after such a heavy impact, Wharton then put his “brand new chassis” on the front row on Sunday, before going on to score his second podium of the year in the race.
“My wrist was quite sore on the Sunday, even a couple of weeks after in Zandvoort, it was [still] a little bit sore, but not any big problems,” he says. “The shock was the probably the biggest thing. I haven’t had a big crash in formula. I’ve never hit the wall or flipped like that, even in karting, so it was a huge wake up for me to realise what can actually happen.”
Round five in Hungary brought him his first double points finish of the year, despite suffering “hardest weekend for pace overall,” before it all finally came good at Mugello.
Despite the gap to the leaders, he is confident that the pace is there and that the title is not yet out of reach. “I’ve already had a championship in 2023 where I had to come back from 70 points in half the amount of races,” he says, referring to the F4 UAE title he won last year.
“It’s not like I’m saying I’m out of the championship, but I still have full belief that I can turn this around, that I can go for the next five races and get the maximum out of the weekend.
“The target is to keep the pace where it is, to try and keep improving [and] maximising my potential. Just making sure I come away from the weekends with what, as a team, especially my engineer and me, I feel like we deserve. We’ve been working very hard this year to make a step from last year and I think we’re doing a good job on that.”
He doesn’t see any need to “change something or go on trying to find a new magic. We’ve got the magic. We just need to use it and get the magic trick out to work. Let’s see.”
The Prema drivers are pulling together, he feels, making the team overall stronger.
“This year it’s showing that having good team-mates is the best thing for a team as well. Team-mates that are working together: me, Rafa and Ugo, I think are the three most competitive, but at the same time we will help each other. As a team we’ve had three drivers that are willing to work together and if one of us beats the others, if we finish second in one session, we still want to work hard and want to be the first. But like it’s good to know that the car is good enough for us and I feel like as a team we’re moving the car forward as well.”
“It looks like the car is the best that’s ever been, but that’s because of the hard work I feel the drivers are putting in to work together instead of just doing our own things or not helping the team.”
The three drivers obviously know each other well from F4 and, in the case of Camara, their time together in the FDA. Ugochukwu “is probably one of my best mates around, on the track, but also off track, so having him as a teammate is always a plus,” he says.
Wharton is one of the few drivers who don’t have to strain their necks too much to converse with the lanky American. “It’s actually horrible because I’m not that short, but every photo call with Ugo makes me look even shorter than what I am,” he says, before adding with a smile that “I try and get beside Rafa in all the photos, so I don’t look as short.”
Wharton & Camara side-by-side (in their cars)
It is, however, on track that he needs to really measure up to Camara, a FREC sophomore and the dominator of the first few rounds.
“To be honest, I’m very happy where I am at the moment as in data wise, driving techniques, stuff like that. I’ve got to a very good point quite quickly. Of course, experience pays a lot and when the track’s changing it’s a lot easier to have the experience from the years before. So of course it’s a little bit easier for Rafa to be more comfortable in a situation or understand it a bit better.
“Of course, there’s a lot of things for me to improve. That gives me another boost of confidence that I have more to improve because I’m so much less experienced, so I’m quite happy because I’m a little bit of the underdog in quali sometimes and maybe not expected to be in front of him.”
For 2025, the goal is clear – to move up to FIA F3, particularly now he has experienced the category in a one-off drive in tricky conditions at Silverstone with Hitech GP in place of All Road stable-mate Martinius Stenshorne.
“Will it happen? We’ll have to wait and see. We’re only halfway through the year. Like every driver, it’s always the goal to move up as quick as possible,” he says.