Formula 3 have confirmed the first driver to race in the series for the 2025 season.
Charlie Wurz has been announced as one of three drivers to race for Trident next year, coming over from Jenzer Motorsport who have departed F3 after the 2024 season.
The Austrian will be joining the Italian outfit as the replacement for the 2024 F3 champion Leonardo Fornaroli who will join Invicta Racing in Formula 2 in 2025. In fact, Wurz will be driving the No. 4 car; the same car that Fornaroli won the title with.
The 18-year-old is the son of former Formula 1 driver Alexander Wurz, who drove with Benetton from 1998 to 2000, before stepping down to a test driver role for six years, five of which with McLaren. He drove for Williams in 2007 before ending his F1 career, achieving three podiums in that time.
Now, his son Charlie is hoping to follow in his footsteps as he embarks on his sophomore year in Formula 3.
Charlie Wurz ‘can’t wait to get to work’ with Trident in 2025
Wurz has had a successful junior career up to this point, winning the Formula 4 UAE Championship in 2022 and the Formula Regional Oceania Championship the following year.
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With back-to-back titles, the 18-year-old moved over to F3 with Jenzer, where he endured a torrid debut season. Wurz only scored points once all year with a fifth place finish in the Feature Race in Australia.
Wurz finished the season in 22nd with 10 points. The Austrian’s teammate Max Esterson could only manage one more point than him in 21st, while Matias Zagazeta scored Jenzer’s only podium with third in the Sprint Race at Silverstone, but was outscored by both Esterson and Wurz.
Jenzer finished bottom of the Teams’ Championship with just 29 points. But despite the difficult campaign, Trident have seen something in Wurz and have given him the chance to prove himself with an established team.
And posting on his Instagram story, Wurz is raring to go with his new team as he wrote: “Can’t wait to get to work!”
Formula 3 are searching for Jenzer Motorsport’s replacement for 2025
With the news that Jenzer Motorsport are shutting up shop and leaving F3, the series is searching for the 10th team that will join the grid.
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Nine of the 10 teams on the F3 grid are currently F2 teams, with only two – DAMS and Invicta Racing – not being in the championship.
DAMS have seen three drivers become F2 champions – Romain Grosjean, Davide Valsecchi and Jolyon Palmer – but the French outfit have struggled in recent years, finishing in the top five only once in the last five seasons.
Invicta are relatively new, taking over from Virtuosi Racing this season having worked with them collaboratively the year prior. The team are currently top of the Teams’ Championship in F2, with driver Gabriel Bortoleto leading the drivers’ standings with two rounds to go.