Formula Scout Top 50 Drivers of 2024: 30-21

Find who made the middle part of our countdown of the best 50 junior single-seater drivers of 2024

30. Lochie Hughes

New entry • USF Pro 2000 title run earned scholarship for Andretti Indy Nxt ride

The 22-year-old Hughes used maturity and consistency to become the 2024 USF Pro 2000 champion with Turn 3 Motorsport. And while he did take two poles, a win and a second place in the opening round, that didn’t actually set up his title charge.

At NOLA Motorsports Park he only had one top-10 finish from three races, and the winning form of Nikita Johnson and Hunter Yeany stole the headlines. But Hughes then went on a seven-race run of podiums, including winning all three races at Road America and making the podium in the Freedom 90 oval race which awarded additional points.

Yeany had dropped off the grid by then, and Hughes was now points leader by a big margin. Therefore he just had to be competitive and clean in the remaining rounds to ensure he became champion.

A fourth and a seventh place at Mid-Ohio was followed by a fifth place and a win on the streets of Toronto, where being mistake-free proved critical for strong results and was where Johnson fell short.

To round out the season, Hughes finished sixth and second in the two races at Portland and earned himself a scholarship to step up to Indy Nxt in 2025. He will make the move with the Andretti Global team.

Although Johnson won more races than Hughes, it was the latter who had the highest average starting and finishing position over the course of the season and made him a deserving champion.

29. Mattia Colnaghi

New entry • Car racing rookie snatched Spanish F4 crown

Colnaghi earned his seat in Spanish F4 with MP Motorsport by winning the Richard Mille Young Talent Academy shootout in 2023.

To warm up for the championship, which had an average grid size of 35 cars this year, Colnaghi got some crucial first racing miles in by doing the first two rounds of Spain’s Formula Winter Series for F4 cars. Two seventh places were his best results, and it put him 18th in the standings.

Those two circuits, Jerez and Barcelona, did not appear on the Spanish F4 schedule until the end of the campaign and so Colnaghi still had a lot of learning to do through most of 2024.

But in round one at Jarama he claimed a pole position, made the podium at Algarve next time out, then turned two poles into two dominant wins at Paul Ricard. He finished fifth in race three, and was now the main rival to team-mate Keanu Al Azhari in the standings but over 40 points behind.

They were both outshone by Maciej Gladysz at Motorland Aragon, then by Juan Cota at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit, but Colnaghi’s two podiums at the latter venue reduced the points gap. Then came the two tracks Colnaghi had already raced on, and the difference that made was remarkable.

At Jerez he took two wins and a third place to reduce the gap to Al Azhari to 13 points. Then pole and another two wins at Barcelona meant he snatched the lead ahead of the decisive race. He finished it behind his rival, but did enough to deny him the title and be the top rookie in the field by almost 100 points.

Colnaghi then made his Formula Regional debut with MP in the Macau Grand Prix, qualifying 14th and taking that position in the main race too despite crashing.

28. Jak Crawford

Re-entry • Sophomore was stronger in F2 with racey DAMS package

Crawford scored more than twice as many points in his sophomore Formula 2 season than he did as a rookie, and jumped from 13th to fifth in the standings.

The key difference with his 2024 campaign was he switched his reliance for points from sprint races to feature races, but was only half a point off being the joint-highest scorer in the former still.

There were no pole positions, unlike in 2023, as Crawford underperformed in qualifying (being the 15th fastest driver on absolute pace across the season) but usually made up for it in races and only suffered one retirement before the final two rounds in the Middle East. Only one driver had finished more races than him up to that point.

Crawford’s sole win of the year came in the Barcelona feature race, which he started from second place on the grid, and that was one of three races he led. The 19-year-old was actually rarely at the front, but the set-up direction at DAMS gave him a car with some of the best race pace in the field.

This was clear at Silverstone, where he came from seventh on the grid to win the feature race on the road before a penalty for an unsafe release from his pit-stop demoted him to third. He called it “one of the best races I’ve had” and it was one of 20 races this year out of 28 where he retained or moved up from his starting position in the race.

That he started seven races from 20th or lower though explains why he can’t feature any higher in this ranking, even taking DAMS’ race-favouring set-ups into account.

27. Alessandro Giusti

Up 7 • Williams junior was a winner again in FREC

Having moved to ART Grand Prix from G4 Racing, where he had won three times as a rookie in 2023, much was expected of Giusti in his sophomore year in Formula Regional Europe. The French team was looking to return to its previous successes, having endured a torrid 2023.

Ahead of the season, Giusti was signed up by the Williams Driver Academy which provided additional support both on and off track.

As Rafael Camara hit the ground running to build up an unassailable points lead, it took Giusti some time to find his feet, with team-mate Evan Giltaire looking ready to usurp his predecessor as French F4 champion.

Giusti scored two podiums at Zandvoort but it wasn’t until the last race before the summer break, on home ground at Paul Ricard, that his season really took off.

He was superb in wet conditions in the south of France, scene of his maiden triumph a year earlier, passing Camara for the lead and sailing to victory. He followed it up with a second win, again in the rain, at Imola as he closed the points gap to the top three.

Unfortunately, a red flag in the Monza finale curtailed his chase of leader Camara and prevented him overhauling Taponen for third in the standings.

Ultimately, fourth was a disappointing outcome for a race-winning sophomore in a field largely comprising category rookies. Nevertheless, his pace is clear, and his 2024 results underlined his wet weather car control. He moves up to FIA Formula 3 with MP Motorsport with the potential to win races.

26. Caio Collet

Re-entry • F3 stalwart established himself well in Indy Nxt

Following three wins from three seasons in FIA F3, Collet stepped up to single-seaters’ second tier by moving to Indy Nxt with HMD Motorsports.

In the same way that the champion had a big margin to second place, who in turn had a big margin to Collet, the Brazilian too was comfortably better than anyone else over the course of the campaign. He secured third in the standings, and rookie-of-the-year honours, by 104 points as his nearest rival scored only three quarters of the points that he did.

Like most drivers coming over from the European racing scene, Collet had no oval experience to cite before he raced on one for the first time in Indy Nxt and his inexperience of those circuits and that type of racing showed. However there was a clear improvement curve, as with his season as a whole, and he concluded the year at Nashville Superspeedway with a third place.

The highlight was undoubtedly Mid-Ohio though, where he converted his maiden pole into a lights-to-flag win, accompanied by the point for fastest lap too. He did take a fastest lap at Iowa Speedway too, but in somewhat unique circumstances since he crashed out early and the pace in the tow was at its highest in the laps before tyre blistering became a concern.

Collet will remain with HMD in Indy Nxt for 2025, and have the same engineer. One track he already has extra experience of is Portland, as his role as Nissan’s reserve driver in Formula E led to him being called up for the championship’s races there this June.

25. Brando Badoer

New entry • String of FREC podiums led to full faith of McLaren

Badoer stood on the Formula Regional Europe podium seven times, but somehow failed to ever reach the top step. He was a model of consistency, regularly challenging at the front but never quite able to clock up a maiden win – not just in FREC but since he started racing cars in 2022.

Tenth place in Formula Regional Middle East for PHM Racing gave little indication of his potential but back in the fold at Van Amersfoort Racing, his European home since graduating from karts, he gained in confidence, leading the team’s strong all-rookie line-up.

He scored points in 15 of 20 races, including five consecutive second-places mid-season, to take fifth in the standings.

His single lap pace was strong too, beaten only by series benchmark Rafael Camara in season average qualifying times, and taking a maiden pole at Mugello.

Clearly, his performances had done enough to impress McLaren, which exercised the option it signed on him last year to make him a full member of its driver development programme, and Prema, which has recruited him to its FIA F3 squad for 2025 as he moves away from VAR. Surely a first win in single-seaters can’t be too far off.

24. Richard Verschoor

Up 9 • F2 veteran enjoyed his best season yet

This may have been Verschoor’s fourth F2 season, and he was only eighth in the standings, but it was also his best and without two disqualifications he would have made the top five in the points.

He led more laps than anyone else in 2024, had the fifth highest feature race points tally and would have matched the champion’s haul of eight podiums from the year had he not been stripped of his sprint race victory at Jeddah for using an “incorrect throttle pedal progressivity map” and being removed from the results of the Hungaroring sprint race due to having a rear plank “below the minimum thickness required” after finishing first on the road.

Verschoor didn’t lose faith in his Trident team’s ability with the championship’s new Dallara F2 2024 car, and they finally took a win that counted in Baku as Verschoor took pole and was victorious in the feature race. However the opportunity to switch to MP for the final two rounds then arose, and the Dutchman snapped it up as quickly as he could.

The outcome from that decision was two podiums and two fastest laps from the final four races, and rising up the points table. He quickly committed to a full-season deal for 2025 with the team too, with his head currently held very high.

23. Oliver Goethe

Re-entry • F2 and Macau cameos made up for any F3 disappointment

Goethe was one of several drivers this year who used appearances in F2 to boost their profile after not quite hitting targets in their primary programme.

For the Red Bull junior it was FIA F3 where he spent most of his time, contesting all but the final round and scoring 94 points to come seventh in the standings with Campos Racing.

He charged to victory in the Imola sprint race then to second in the feature, setting the fastest lap in both, and he also made the podium in the Barcelona sprint race during a 12-race scoring run. While consistency delivered the title to former team-mate Leonardo Fornaroli, it didn’t reap the same rewards for Goethe (who had the next highest average finishing position) and once he saw an opportunity to race in F2 – when friend Franco Colapinto stepped up to Formula 1 – he took it with both hands.

Although he failed to score in his first five races, he netted 14 points from the final three – including fourth place in the Lusail feature race – to leap to 23rd in the standings and he was the 14th fastest driver in the field on average race pace in a competitive MP Motorsport-run car.

Goethe also made a FRegional cameo with MP in the Macau Grand Prix, and it was another profile-boosting outing since he qualified second (just 0.014s shy of pole) then was runner-up in the qualification and main races. He will remain with MP for 2025 as he embarks on a full F2 campaign.

22. Christian Mansell

New entry • Stepped up to be F3 title outsider with ART

The teenaged Mansell began 2024 by stepping down from F3 to FRegional to contest the New Zealand-based Oceania championship. He only did two rounds, but still came away with a win, three second places, two poles and ninth in the standings.

Upon his return to single-seater’s third tier, where he has been racing since 2021, he did not have any high-impact performances – extending his win-free streak at that level to 56 races – but was methodological in maximising the pace of the package ART Grand Prix provided him with.

In this instance, it means Mansell was often a beneficiary of reversed grids yet also made the feature race podium four times – a figure only the win-free champion bettered.

Mansell’s average starting position was 8.9, but that was the fifth best in the field and he converted it into the third-largest feature race points haul in the field with 95 of his 112 points coming on Sundays. Pole position at Barcelona earned him an extra two as well.

Following the conclusion of the season, Mansell stepped up to F2 with Trident and adapted quickly to the higher level. From a sample size of three rounds and at three tracks that were new to him, he had the ninth best race pace in the field but was 27th on single-lap pace. He also led six laps, compared to 11 across the whole FIA F3 season, and scored in half of the races he contested. Unsurprisingly he will make the move to F2 full-time in 2025, driving for Rodin Motorsport.

21. Jacob Abel

New entry • Became Indy Nxt race-winner and title challenger in third year

Abel’s impressive Indy Nxt season existed in the shadow of the champion’s utterly sublime one, but he was a step ahead of the rest of the pack so comfortably claimed the championship runner-up spot.

In the first three rounds (encompassing four races) he took two wins, two second places and three poles, which comfortably made him points leader. Although he only took one more win following that, there were six other podium finishes, no retirements and only two days in which he finished outside of the top 10.

Abel also did well in wheel-to-wheel battles, with a calm style that was predictable but often wasn’t picked up on by rivals. What proved costly was falling behind his rival Louis Foster in qualifying, particularly on the ovals where he started and finished behind at every single one.

But consistently being on the podium meant he ended the year 81 points clear of third in the standings, and having proven he can master the Indy Nxt car in his third season it’s now a question of whether he needs a fourth campaign or find a place in IndyCar to speed up his development curve on ovals. Next season the top-tier series races on five, and its support series visits four.