Photo: Campos Racing
A breakout year featuring 12 victories and two Spanish F4 titles has set expectations high for a leap up to third-tier single-seaters for 2026 that was planned long in advance as the Belgian revealed to Ida Wood
There is a wave of exciting Belgian talents currently winning in karting’s biggest events and making an impact in entry-level single-seaters, and leading that group is 17-year-old Thomas Strauven. This year he became the second driver in Spanish Formula 4 history to win the title with four races to spare, and he fell just short of the 400-point marker which Richard Verschoor and Nikola Tsolov reached in their title-winning seasons.
But with a 157-point winning margin, he officially became the most dominant champion in terms of his gap to what was a strong opposition.
This season was Strauven’s third in the Spanish F4 paddock, but that’s not a fact that should diminish his 2025 excellence. He did one round with MP Motorsport in 2023, and last year joined Rodin Motorsport for a double programme.
The first championship he contested was the Spain-based Formula Winter Series, and only scored in one of the four rounds but that included a victory that helped put him 12th in the standings. In Spanish F4 he started off very strongly at Jarama, finishing third with the fastest lap in the season-opening race, winning the next one from pole and finishing 10th in the third to depart round one second in the standings.
In round two at Algarve he took two third places, taking the fastest lap in both of those races, to sit third in the points. But there were only three top-five finishes in the next 12 races as the season literally heated up and Strauven dropped to seventh in the standings after missing the final round.
In conversation with Formula Scout this year as he romped to the title, Strauven said he “wasn’t really stressing about” his worsening form over the course of 2024.
Photo: Spanish F4
“Because in the beginning of the year, it was really cold every time, and I thought the car was really good in the cold conditions. Maybe because [Rodin] are British, I don’t know,” he said half-jokingly.
“The car was really strong when it was really windy. When the track was really hard to drive; the car was reacting really good. But while we were getting through the season, like the hottest race [of each weekend] would always be the worst race.
“I didn’t know really if it was me or the car, because I didn’t really have team-mates to compare with. So in the beginning of this year, we could only see how the car was in the [Spanish F4] winter series, and I think it’s really good [again]. But now in hot temperatures [in 2025], we can also see that it’s handling really well and we’re getting the same results as in the winter.”
In 2024, Strauven scored 122 points while the drivers of Rodin’s other two cars scored 25 between them.
“At Rodin it was really hard for me because: one, I was like 0.5 seconds off [the pace]. And I don’t know where to look for the 0.5s. And it was also hard for me when I’m the first [-placed] of the team and I’m one second faster than my team-mates. It looked like I drove well, but maybe if there was [to be] someone else and he’s faster than [me then] I drove bad. So it was pretty hard. I like it more with [strong] team-mates and more team-mates, so you have more data.”
By joining Campos Racing for 2025, who he “felt really confident with” after testing with them, Strauven became part of a six-car line-up and used that to improve himself and maximise results.
Strauven was certain that without such strong opposition, and team-mates, this year his own performances would’ve been worse. He particularly credited team-mate Jan Przyrowski, who was runner-up to Strauven in the Spanish F4 Winter Championship and third in the main championship.
“We were pushing each other, you know. If I’m faster, he wants to push more. And then he’s faster and I want to push more. I think we’re both getting stronger with each other [as benchmarks] because we are two strong team-mates.”
Photo: Spanish F4
Przyrowski won four races to Strauven’s two in the three-round winter championship, but the latter only finished one race outside of the top four and claimed more of the extra points for taking pole.
There was also a super start to the main championship for Przyrowski, who won three of the first four races. But he didn’t win again after that, while Strauven starred at every track and was on the podium in all but four of the season’s 21 races.
It felt similar to Tsolov’s 2022 domination, which was unsurprising given Strauven had Jose ‘Josete’ Perez as his race engineer. Perez engineered Tsolov in F4, and in the FIA Formula 3 Championship this year.
“I think he’s a really good engineer,” said Strauven. “I have a really good connection with him. We make some jokes as well. I really like him as a guy. And I learn a lot [from him].”
Strauven was not anticipating the level of form that meant he won at all but one track, and he tried to not think about his title prospects during the season.
“I always stayed in myself. Not like ‘ooo, I’m going to win this easily’. So I was always trying to keep my foot on the floor. And obviously tried to do my best.
“I didn’t really expect this domination. I definitely thought we had a chance to win the championship. But with three other really good drivers that were fighting a lot with me — Jan, Rene Lammers and Ean Eyckmans — it wasn’t expected. That’s quite cool to be 100 points ahead [of them].”
Eyckmans, another Belgian, and Lammers drove for MP and came second and fourth in the standings. There was a season-long trend though of when one was a rival to Strauven, the other was far from the podium.
Photo: Spanish F4
Eyckmans put Strauven under a lot of pressure in round three at Algarve, but that forced the championship leader to improve and as a result he delivered his only weekend where he won every race.
“I think my racecraft wasn’t really that good at the end of last year and in the beginning of this year,” Strauven reflected.
“Like I would always be good driving from P10 to the front, and starting from P1 [I wasn’t]. Now, all of a sudden at Portimao, I made it click and [every time] there’s someone behind I stay cool and try to get my head down and try to go and look ahead.”
The slipstream effect at Algarve made it hard for Strauven to pull away, so he had to “change the mindset”.
“When you’re starting a bit more in the back, [I knew] just take it easy, overtake some guys. I was quite good in overtaking, but my defending was just worse. So I think I made a good improvement in my defending through the year.”
Strauven converted his first pole of 2025 into victory, but failed to do so with the next six. With his Algarve breakthrough, only one of the next six poles didn’t lead to a win and over the year there were six victories where he had to pass rivals to win.
After winning the main Spanish F4 title in the penultimate round of the year, Strauven entered the Barcelona finale with the 400-point target in mind but wanting to “not take too many risks” to achieve it. He dominated race one, then had to take risks in the next two races as he qualified 10th.
Prior to that weekend, there were only two qualifying sessions where Strauven had been outside of the top two, and those outliers had been a fourth and a fifth place. On the final day of the season, some bold moves meant Strauven recovered to fifth and fourth in the final two races but ended eight points shy of his goal.
Managing his career is Benjamin Bailly, who came seventh in FIA Formula 2 back in 2010, and he secured Strauven his Campos seat not just for 2025 but also for 2026. A dominant year in Spanish F4 was far from their original racing plan.
Photo: Spanish F4
“I wanted to do Eurocup-3 or something [at the Formula Regional level] this year, but I think whatever you do, you need to be with a winning team [for career momentum] to get up to Formula 1 or F2. You always need to be in a winning team to win championships.
“We couldn’t find the budget to do Eurocup-3 with a good team, then Campos offered us a year of F4 and Eurocup-3 next year. So I’m really happy with them. And also in [Spanish F4’s] winter series, I got to learn how they work. I like the way they work a lot. They [have been] doing a really good job to make the car on point and get me also ready [to perform well].”
The Eurocup-3 part of the deal was announced a few days ago, and it will be a big jump as the championship introduces a faster car that moves it up from FRegional to F3 level. But the Campos-Strauven combination looks well placed to shine.
CV
Age 17
D/O/B April 5, 2008
Country Belgium
Car racing
2025: Spanish F4 champion (10 wins, 10 poles, 11 fastest laps), Spanish F4 Winter champion (2 W, 3 P, 4 FL)
2024: 7th in Spanish F4 (1 W, 1 P, 3 FL), 12th in FWinter Series (1 W)
2023: 32nd in Spanish F4
Karting
2023 (all OK): 2nd in WSK Super Master Series, 17th in Champions of the Future, 30th in CIK-FIA European Championship
2022: 2nd in LeCont Trophy – OK, 10th in WSK Open Cup – OK, 39th in WSK Final Cup – OK, 10th in CotF – OK Junior, 11th in CIK-FIA European Championship – OK-J, 13th in Italian Championship – Junior, 35th in CIK-FIA World Championship – OK-J
2021: 2nd in IAME Int. Games – X30 Jr, 6th in Rotax Max Euro Trophy – Rotax Jr, 11th in IAME Euro Series – X30 Jr, 19th in BNL Karting Series – Rotax Jr, 28th in WSK Final Cup – OK-J
2020: 34th in Rotax Max Euro Trophy – Rotax Jr, BNL Karting Series champion – X30 Mini, 2nd in Rotax Max Int. Trophy – Rotax Mini, 6th in IAME Euro Series – X30 Mini, 7th in IAME Winter Cup – X30 Mini, 30th in IAME I-Games – X30 Mini
2019: Rotax Max Int. Trophy winner – Rotax Micro, 2nd in BNL Karting Series – Rotax Micro