Academy Report: Sasha Seals Maiden Single-Seater Win and Dean Takes European Title

The Williams Racing Driver Academy welcomed a new name to its list of race-winning talent as Sasha Bondarev clinched his maiden victory in single-seater machinery this weekend.

Sasha wasn't the only Williams representative clinching success, though, as our young karting talent Dean Hoogendoorn stormed to the OK-Junior European championship title.

Read on to see how Sasha and Dean's winning weekends unfolded, and how Luke Browning, Victor Martins, and Alessandro Giusti handled their Budapest test in F2 and F3. Plus Will Green and Sara Matsui's karting races.

A huge milestone moment for Sasha came under the Imola sunshine after our F4 rookie took his first pole position that morphed into a race victory in an interrupted weekend of racing.

"It's a really nice result. It shows how much progress we've made over the year," said Bondi after taking pole. He was only 0.005 from a double P1 start, too, after missing out on Race 2 pole by a tiny margin.

Nonetheless, the strong weekend started with a P4 finish from the second row in Race 1, where he spent 30 minutes behind PREMA teammates Salim Hanna and Kean Nakamura-Berta at the tough-to-pass track.

Multiple lengthy Safety Cars further limited any chances of reaching the podium, but the Race 1 incidents were minor compared to what followed in Race 2.

Starting from P2, Bondi's mirrors were full of carnage after a stall in P4 resulted in repeated cars colliding with the stationary driver to leave debris and broken F4 machinery all over the track. Everyone was unharmed, but race control cancelled the race.

Thankfully, there was no such repeat on the opening lap of Race 3, but Sasha had to go on the defensive when teammate and championship leader Nakamura-Berta attacked over the first lap and snatched P1 just before a Safety Car's appearance.

Clearly boasting the best speed of the leaders, Bondi kept on the tail of his teammate, probing for a pass into Tamburello on nearly every lap until another SC slowdown.

That hard work eventually paid off with the remaining racing laps, with Sasha's overspeed out of Rivazza being enough to get him alongside Nakamura-Berta.

A sweeping pass around the outside of the left-hand entry had him on the inside of the chicane's second half, gaining our Ukrainian P1 with three minutes remaining on the clock.

As if to demonstrate the advantage, a Fastest Lap came Sasha's way after snatching the lead, and he can enjoy his summer as a single-seater race winner.

The Italian F4 championship leaves the country for a trip to Spain and the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya over September 19-21 next month. It's a classic track for Bondi to tackle, and a staple on the junior ladder for him to get familiar with as he enters his first round with an F4 victory under his belt.

Our Dutch karting hopeful followed in the footsteps of Sasha by becoming the European OK-Junior class champion this weekend.

That means both Dean and Sasha share the same karting championship win as none other than Atlassian Williams Racing's Alex Albon, not to mention other notable F1 drivers like Sebastian Vettel, George Russell, and Lando Norris.

Dean's successful season had him entering the final round in the championship lead with 223 points, but with Noah Baglin only 17 points behind heading into the Denmark showdown.

The gap on the remaining racers essentially left the duo in a head-to-head fight for the title and their battle commenced in the Qualifying Heats, where Dean stretched his advantage by 10 points over the Briton.

More points followed in the Super Heats, where Dean's points tally had him one position higher than Baglin's, but a P4 classification in the Final sealed the title by 33 points for our young star.

Two of our other karting hopefuls were in action this weekend, too, with Will Green also racing around in OK-Junior and Sara Matsui taking to the Danish track in the OK category.

Will reached the Final after picking up a P27 classification in the Qualifying Heats, and improving to P19 in the Super Heats, but sadly ended his weekend without getting a lap in during the final race. Will ends his season P14 out of the 87 runners.

It was a shortened weekend for Sara, whose P77 Qualifying Heats left her without a chance to go into the final races, and she finishes the year in P83.

Luke continued clocking up the points from successful Sunday drives with a P4 finish in the Budapest Feature Race. Our British hopeful has only failed to take a top-six finish in the main F2 race once all season.

His 12 valuable points came from a 37-lap run around a drying Hungaroring that largely saw a processional race on the tricky-to-pass track.

Opting for the conventional Soft-to-Hard tyre strategy, a rolling start left Luke without any prime opportunity to try and pass off the line and he slotted into the P4 position he qualified in.

One overtake to reach the podium looked like it could come off, with Luke pushing past Jak Crawford at Turn 1, but a wide moment at Turn 2 undid that work.

That P4 finish helped ease any frustration from a more battling Saturday. Luke ended up with a P12 classification after crossing the line in P5.

Going wheel-to-wheel with Victor after a late Safety Car restart had our F2 pair separated by millimetres, and Luke received a penalty for leaving the track to demote him down the order.

The doubleheader is over and Luke will have an extended summer break with Formula 2 not heading to Zandvoort. A trip to Milan is next on the F2 calendar, with Monza rounding out the European summer with Luke only 31 points from the top spot.

Another top-10 qualification had Victor in the thick of the action, and especially so during a busy Sprint Race.

A double-pronged attack on Crawford from Luke and Victor had our French F2 hopeful sticking in P4 and on the tail of Alex Dunne by Turn 4.

Victor pushed Arvid Lindblad for that podium slot once Dunne passed the Campos driver and ended up in the middle of a multi-car melee when he went for an overtake.

Avoiding contact with Lindblad at Turn 3 that almost cost Victor his front wing had Crawford take advantage and demote Victor to P5, just in front of Luke.

The Safety Car slowdown late in the race left the two Williams Racing Driver Academy cars battling through Turn 1 to Turn 3 with Victor managing to stay ahead.

Luke's avoiding action on the final lap had him initially crossing the line ahead in P5, before the penalty promoted Victor to get those four points.

Sadly those were all the points scored in Hungary after tyre temperature issues preceded a mechanical retirement on Lap 10 in the Feature Race.

The Temple of Speed comes next for Victor, who, like Luke, will take an extended break from racing over the summer. He's stood on the Monza podium in each of his previous F2 visits. Can he keep up that record in September?

Sandro had an unwanted F3 first in Hungary, picking up his only DNF of the year so far in the Sprint Race after running in the top-10 spots and having contact with Ugo Ugochukwu exiting Turn 12.

Yet there were points still coming for our F3 racer, whose P9 qualification helped him battle towards the front in Sunday's Feature Race.

The morning rain had soaked the circuit, and race control opted for a rolling start as the track gradually dried over the race.

Concentration was key for Sandro, who had to sit through two early Safety Car periods after Ugochukwu and Gerrard Xie crashed.

Their collision left Sandro in P7, but the wet tyres on the drying circuit struggled for grip as the race progressed and our MP Motorsport driver fell behind third-year racer Nikola Tsolov.

Laurens Van Hoepen also pipped Sandro as the clock ticked down to zero minutes in a long Sunday of driving that saw the race reach its 45-minute limit, and Sandro crossed the line in P9.

It's the end-of-year-event next for Sandro, as F3 concludes its season with the traditional Monza finale. His strong 2025 rookie campaign has him with 57 points and sitting P9 in the standings, and he'll want to keep that impressive position by the end of his Italian trip.