FelipeDrugovich

IN FOCUS: FELIPE DRUGOVICH

One of the rising young stars in motorsport, Felipe Drugovich became hot property when he dominated the 2022 FIA Formula 2 championship to conclude a marvellous junior single-seater career.

Felipe was a karting champion in his native Brazil before switching to Europe, where he added further successes to his repertoire. From there, he naturally made the switch to Formula 4 for 2016, racing in the ADAC-run German championship.

He missed out on the title in the following year later in a three-way last race showdown but went on to win the India-based MRF Challenge title over that winter, beating the likes of future IndyCar race winner Rinus VeeKay.

For the following year, Felipe raced in, and dominated, the Euroformula Open Championship, winning 14 of the 16 races and finishing second in the two he didn't win.

This led to a switch to the newly rebranded FIA Formula 3 Championship for the following year with Carlin alongside former karting rival (and future F1 driver) Logan Sargeant. 2019 proved to be a challenging year for the outfit, and Felipe picked up just eight points all season – albeit with a strong drive at the Hungaroring.

Despite the challenges of 2019, he moved up to Formula 2 for the following season with MP Motorsport. MP as a team had won just once in F2 prior to 2020, and on his first weekend in the championship at the Red Bull Ring, Felipe had won his first race in the category with the team. In an impressive season overall, he added further victories at Barcelona and in Bahrain and a pole at Silverstone.

For 2021, Felipe moved to the Virtuosi outfit which had proven to be one of the fastest the previous year. That advantage had waned, and Felipe was not able to repeat his heroics from the previous season, not helped by some poor luck at times. His highlights included strong weekends in Monaco and at Yas Marina, helped by combative drives.

Felipe returned to MP for the 2022 season – and while several pundits expected a strong season from him, it was not expected that he would dominate it. Early wins in Saudi Arabia and Monaco, as well as doing a rare double in Spain, opened up what became a significant lead towards the summer break.

While Théo Pourchaire's title push fell away in the final four rounds of the season, Felipe pushed on and victory at Zandvoort all but cemented the title for him. He clinched it at Monza a week later and signed his deal to become Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team Reserve Driver, as well as the inaugural member of the Young Driver Development Programme, that very weekend.

Throughout 2023, Felipe played a crucial role with the team. He stepped in brilliantly for Lance when the Canadian was injured just days before pre-season testing, took part in two Free Practice sessions for the team and completed many kilometers of testing as part of his testing programme.

Felipe's relentless consistency and work ethic will play a key role in extracting the most from the AMR24 throughout the season and he will be on standby to step in should Fernando or Lance be unable to drive.