Photo: Top Speed
Nicolas Todt’s protege Jack Beeton has been signed by US Racing to drive in Euro 4, Formula Winter Series and Italian Formula 4 this year.
The 16-year-old Australian joined Todt’s All Road Management stable a year ago, and since then has accumulated plenty of F4 experience.
Beeton spent 2021 and ’22 in junior karting at home, winning a club title and coming seventh in the national series’ KA4 Junior class in 2021 and then coming third and fifth in the Queensland and national championships respectively in 2022.
He travelled to Europe to compete in the Ferrari Driver Academy’s World Scouting Final and to begin F4 test preparations with Cram Motorsport, US Racing and Van Amersfoort Racing. To make his car racing debut he headed back to Australia, competing in the Formula Open races at Phillip Island’s ‘Island Magic’ event.
Beeton’s 2023 began in F4 United Arab Emirates, where he raced for Pinnacle VAR and came 23rd in the standings with six points. He remained with VAR for Euro 4 and Italian F4, coming 15th in the former and 23rd in the latter, scoring eight points across the two series.
Next on his schedule was F4 South East Asia, where he raced for Australian team AGI Sport. Two wins from pole in round one and a further three podiums in the remaining events comfortably delivered Beeton the title, although he was one of only two full-time drivers in the series.
Last month he and the team headed over to F4 UAE, and two podiums put Beeton 12th in the stanings. That programme meant he missed the first two FWinter Series rounds, so will only contest rounds three and four with US Racing.
“Now I can finally announce that I will race with US Racing,” said Beeton.
“I love working with the team and feel very comfortable in the team. After racing in F4 UAE championship, I am now happy that my season with US Racing will start next week in [Motorland] Aragon as part of the FWinter Series. We are well prepared for the upcoming season. My target is to run on the top and have strong race performances.”
US Racing’s co-founder Gerhard Ungar commented: “We know Jack for a while now and watched him over the past F4 season. Jack showed his potential on his tests with us. Jack is a very talented, young race driver and I am sure we will see top results on the front from him in this upcoming race season.”
Fellow co-owner Ralf Schumacher added: “Jack is a very open, pleasant, young race driver with a big talent and good speed. I am very excited so see his potential on the race track.”