Photo: Alpine F1 Team
The Alpine Formula 1 team has announced that Keanu Al Azhari has become a member of its academy.
The 17-year-old Emirati is headed to GB3 this year with Hitech GP, the junior single-seater outfit launched by Alpine’s current team principal and which is partnered with Toyota Gazoo Racing.
Alpine also has a link to Toyota through one of its reserve drivers Ryo Hirakawa, who is a two-time World Endurance champion with the brand.
Al Azhari, 17, has spent the past two years primarily racing in the Emirati and Spanish Formula 4 championships but has also picked up sportscar experience.
He and the Yas Heat Academy team made their F4 debut in the non-championship F4 United Arab Emirates Trophy races in late 2022 and he made the podium twice, then in the 2023 F4 UAE season he came seventh in the standings with two podiums.
Following that he joined MP Motorsport, and his Spanish F4 season started on a high with a podium and a pole at Spa-Francorchamps but did not see the podium again once on Spanish soil and slipped to ninth in the standings.
At the end of the year he turned pole into victory in both F4 UAE Trophy races, and followed that up by coming third in the 2024 F4 UAE season with three poles, two wins and five other podiums.
To warm up for his sophomore Spanish F4 campaign, Al Azhari did two Formula Winter Series rounds in Spain and came away with a double pole and a victory. He continued that form into the main championship, coming 10 points short of the title as he won four races, made the podium in nine other races and started on pole five times.
Over in sportscars, Al Azhari co-drove an LMP3 car to several wins in Prototype Cup Germany and began 2025 with two wins in a Porsche 911 GT3 R over in Iberia’s GT Winter Series.