Photo: F4 NACAM
The fourth running of the Ferrari Driver Academy’s Scouting World Final is underway, with six drivers fighting to become a Formula 1 junior for 2024.
The six finalists went to Ferrari’s Maranello headquarters on Tuesday to complete “a series of tests to evaluate their physical abilities, attitude, mental suitability for the life of a racing driver, as well as other important aspects, such as how to deal with sponsors and the media” according to Marco Matassa, head of the FDA.
On Thursday there will be a track walk on Fiorano’s test track, then the finalists spend Friday and Saturday driving around it in Prema-owned Formula 4 cars.
The track sessions will include a race simulation, and the reference driver will be reigning Scouting World Final winner Tuukka Taponen. He was a race-winner in Formula Academy Finland in 2021 and ’22, then this year was F4 United Arab Emirates runner-up.
Seeking to emulate him by becoming a Ferrari junior, but having already got F4 titles to their names unlike Taponen, are Pedro Clerot and Pedro Juan Moreno.
Clerot was the 2022 Brazilian F4 champion with seven race wins, and is currently sixth in Spanish F4. Moreno won the NACAM F4 title earlier this month, and will miss this weekend’s season finale on the support bill of F1’s Mexico City Grand Prix due to taking part in the Scouting World Final. In his title-winning campaign he took 11 victories.
The other four finalists at Fiorano are new to F4 since they made it into FDA-organised scouting camps through their karting exploits and impressed in them to then reach the final.
Rene Lammers – the 15-year-old son of Dutch former F1 racer Jan – is this year’s CIK-FIA European champion on OK karts. He was also World Karting Championship runner-up, came third in the WSK Super Master Series and 11th in the Champions of the Future series.
Fellow finalist Emanuele Olivieri started his rookie year on OK karts by finishing fifth in the Lonato Winter Cup and eighth in the WSK Champions Cup. The Italian followed that up with 13th in WSK SMS, 15th in CotF and 34th in the European championship.
Filipino karter William Go graduated to senior karting a year ago after coming sixth in the FIA Karting Academy Trophy and 11th in the WSK Euro Series for OK Junior karts. In 2023 his highlight has been 14th place in the WSK Champions Cup.
Enzo Yeh, from Taipei, has recently been doing F4 testing and is will make his race debut at the Macau Grand Prix next month in the revived F4 South East Asia series with Asia Racing Team.