Mid-Season Academy Report: 2025's Highs and Lows

The class of '25 has the Williams Racing Driver Academy featuring in four different single-seater championships as well as karting.

Our junior ranks have grown to nine drivers as part of our commitment to the future, with the Williams W racing in F2, F3, F4, F1 Academy, and multiple karting championships.

With titles, wins, podiums, and plenty of points, here's how our Academy hopefuls have enjoyed the year so far.

Luke Browning and Victor Martins have had a rollercoaster season in F2 this year with highs and lows in both cockpits.

The duo have often duelled for position on track with some nail-biting wheel-to-wheel action towards the front of the field in a season that's had split fortunes.

For Luke, a year of high Feature Race finishes has helped propel a title challenge as Formula 2 enters its final four rounds.

Silverware at six circuits, including a superb double-podium weekend at Imola, has shown his adaptiveness to his new series after his F3 graduation last year.

Scoring points at every venue was the consistency that spurred Luke on in 2024, and he's incredibly continued that form for 2025 to have our Briton as one of the five title hopefuls in a competitive championship.

Victor, our 2025 Academy arrival, has often shone on Friday's Qualifying session to get a high grid slot, but hasn't had luck landing his way for the Feature Races.

Heavy Australian rain stopped any chances of his pole position in the season-opening Melbourne round turning into victory, and a seven-car opening-lap crash at Turn 1 in Monaco took Victor from the front row to retirement.

Top-10 finishes have regularly come Victor's way, though, and he only has one zero-points weekend on his 2025 calendar thanks to that Lap 1 Monte Carlo incident.

Both drivers have also enjoyed a taste of Formula 1, too. Luke jumped in the FW47 in Bahrain's FP1, with Victor sampling our 2025 entry in Spain in busy weekends for our most senior Academy hopefuls.

A rookie campaign on the F1 support bill for Alessandro Giusti has fared rather well. Our sole F3 representative has settled into his new series well, scoring frequently throughout the season.

Melbourne's soaking start was quite the debut weekend, and Sandro narrowly missed out on points in his first race with a P11 result, but soon got into the point-scoring swing of things.

Sandro's run of nine consecutive top-10 finishes in races stretched from Bahrain to Austria and culminated in two rostrum trips in front of the Williams Racing team.

His first came on a Spanish GP weekend where his third row qualifying slot had him towards the front in both races, and his pace shone throughout.

Overtaking with confidence across both the Sprint and Feature Races, Sandro's Barcelona brilliance culminated in a last-lap pass for P3 and a maiden Formula 3 podium on Sunday.

That confidence continued to Spielberg, and Sandro's front row start in the Austrian Sprint Race had him collect another trophy in his very next race after a P2 finish.

He heads to Monza to end a respectable rookie campaign in F3 machinery looking likely for a top-10 finish in the championship after multiple strong performances over the year.

Stepping from karts to single-seater machinery is always a leap for a driver, and it's the step our F4 hopeful Oleksandr 'Sasha' Bondarev took for this year.

Sasha's Italian F4 campaign has had him go up against a deep field of drivers that has featured up to 36 cars on track at a time.

A rookie race win of the opening round at Misano showed Bondi wasn't premature in jumping out of karts, but it has undoubtedly been a year of learning for our 16-year-old racer.

Spinning from the lead in Monza and two further retirements at the Temple of Speed meant the trip to Milan was one to forget, but Sasha's resilience has paid off.

He headed into a long summer break from early August to late September with a victory to his name.

Pole, Fastest Lap, and the victory came at Imola, and Sasha had to work for that win. Losing the lead on the opening lap, our Ukrainian had to battle back past his teammate in the final minutes to regain P1 and become a single-seater race winner.

Italian F4 has two rounds remaining for Sasha to tackle, with a trip to Barcelona next up before a finale at Misano in October.

A second season in F1 Academy has not had the results that Lia Block would've hoped for as the championship heads to its fifth of seven rounds next week at Zandvoort.

It's not from a lack of speed from Lia, though, who has demonstrated overtaking prowess over the season so far. Misfortune and time penalties have hurt Lia's championship standings as she aims to recover ground in the final three rounds.

A crash outside of Lia's control in Shanghai's Qualifying session had her needing a new chassis for two races where she'd start from P18. Passing nearly half the field for a brace of P9 finishes exemplified Lia's speed in China to start her season.

More passes in Jeddah followed another Qualifying incident, but no points followed, and avoiding action in Miami after a solid P5 starting slot meant another race of overtaking, this time without points after a five-second penalty.

Wet weather played havoc in that Floridian weekend and resulted in a race postponement, creating a triple-whammy of action in Canada.

Lia took a season-best finish of P4 in that delayed race, and more points followed over that June weekend.

A long break until Zandvoort might've had other drivers without much to do, but Lia has kept busy. A Goodwood FW14B outing and a Boone Forest rally victory have filled her need for speed this summer.

Four W monograms have appeared on the helmets of karting hopefuls in 2025, with a quartet of young drivers entering the year with Williams backing.

American Lucas Palacio started 2025 right by becoming WSK Super Master Series champion in OKJ-N in March, and has continued impressing on both sides of the Atlantic over the year.

Another Williams title followed over the summer, with Dean Hoogendoorn joining Alex Albon as European OK-Junior champion after clinching the title at the Rødby finale in Denmark.

An up-and-down year for Will Green in OK-Junior has had the Briton enjoy top-three finishes in Champions of the Future and WSK Super Master Series, and he also picked up a P4 in an X30 cameo in the IAME Euro Series at Wackersdorf.

Finally, Sara Matsui has continued growing her racing experience by taking to four championships. She's contested the Champions of the Future, CotF Academy, WSK Super Master Series, and the FIA Karting European Championship in a busy year for our Japanese racer.