ART Grand Prix’s 2025 F3 season had many highs and lows, but overall, was not the season that Team Principal Sébastien Philippe was aiming for. The team ultimately ended the season in P4 in the Team’s Standings, with 152 points.
High expectations that weren’t quite met
Philippe described the season as “a bit difficult”. He explained that the high expectations they held, didn’t quite match their results. At the same time, he acknowledged the challenging nature of the F3 Championship, and how closely the team battled.
A strong start to the first three rounds with Tuukka Taponen severely heightened their hopes. By the third round, the Finnish driver found himself third in the Driver’s Standings. Philippe believes that overall, the team could have done a far better job. Unfortunately their performance unravelled due to the inability to perfect every detail.
“A bit difficult. For sure the expectations were higher than what we delivered due to a lot of different things. In F3, the competition is hard, with a lot of cars and very close battles. Globally we had some good performances sometimes, sometimes struggling a bit more, but we didn’t optimise what we could have done on occasions.
“It’s just the fact that we started quite strong with Tuukka Taponen after three rounds, he was P3 in the Drivers’ Championship, but we struggled on some occasions. Melbourne was a disaster, but we didn’t optimise what we could have done because if you get it wrong in quali on the push lap, you start very far back, and I think many times, we should have been able to deliver better performances, but for different reasons it didn’t happen.
“So we could have done a much better job globally. We haven’t been able to be very good in all details and sometimes we could have done a better job unfortunately.”
James Wharton
Rookie James Wharton has had a tough season, despite his maiden Sprint Race win in F3. Finishing a mere P18 in the Driver’s Standings, Philippe revealed that he feels as though the team “didn’t succeed” with Wharton.
He also noted that the team was unable to optimise their package for the Australian. Wharton’s talent was further acknowledged by Philippe, adding that he should’ve been in a better position with the talent he has.
“A bit of frustration with how James’ season went. We didn’t find the key to help him perform at the level he deserved to be. We haven’t been able to optimise the package for James, and clearly, he should have been, with his talent, in a much better position. Clearly, we didn’t succeed with him.”
Tuukka Taponen
Tuukka Taponen gave ART Grand Prix the strong start to the season that they were looking for. Unfortunately, Philippe added that it was as if they had missed Qualifying after the first few rounds. Barcelona’s Formula 3 round saw the progress crumbling.
Following this, the team went on a four round streak of leaving without additional points. Philippe also acknowledged that the performance Taponen holds as a rookie is relatively “not that bad”, and he should’ve done a better job.
“With Tuukka, we had a very strong start of the season and after we had three or four races in a row where we missed Qualifying. We had some issues in Barcelona and from there on we had three difficult qualifyings.
“So we did four rounds without scoring the points we should have been able to score. After he went back a bit, but I think in terms of performance, globally as a rookie it was not that bad, and he should have done a much better job. When I was talking about optimising everything, I think with Tuukka at some point, we should have done the normal push laps in quali, and for different reasons this completely killed a few rounds.”
Laurens Van Hoepen
Returning to the Formula 3 grid with ART Grand Prix after competing with them in 2024, Van Hoepen face the challenge of the new generation of F3 car. This saw him taking time to adapt, slowly improving over the season. Philippe noted just how tricky the line between succeeding and failing can be to read. With a 30 car grid, with many cars strong enough to fight for points, success becomes trickier.
“With Laurens, I think we had a difficult start of the season to adapt everything for him with this new car, and after it was getting better. But between succeeding and not, sometimes the line is very narrow. This especially true in F3 when you have a field with 30 cars and over 20 cars at least that can fight for good points, you can see that consistency has not been there for many drivers. It’s important to fight to be consistent and this for sure we struggled a bit.”
Improvements necessary for the 2026 season
Each season proves to have lessons to be learnt, Philippe adding they continue to learn each season. With 2026 being the second year of the current F3 car, teams will begin to wrap their head about what works and what doesn’t. This creates both an advantage and disadvantage.
While this will boost ART GP’s understanding of the car, it will also boost everyone else’s, minimising the potential gain. He also acknowledged that the field is filled with capable drivers, meaning everyone will need to fight their hardest.
The key goals for ART Grand Prix in 2026 are to optimise their package, and push it to it’s maximum. While he could see that these are two different topics, he added that these both need to be focused on.
“I think you always learn from what happened during a season. It will be the second year of this car, so with more experience, we know what is good and what is not good, so for sure it will definitely help with the consistency.
“But saying that it will be the same for everyone, it’s going to be a tough competition, but we learn from everything so we start next year by trying to perform at a better level. Much like all our competitors, I think the field has a lot of good drivers and good teams. So we need to make sure that each weekend we are capable of delivering hundred percent of the package we have.
“There are two things, to optimise the package, and to do the best we can with the package we have, because already this is something to work on and after it’s to improve the package. This is two different topics, and on both we need to work hard to make it happen.”
