The 2025 F3 season marks Hitech driver Gerrard Xie‘s rookie season in the championship. After stepping up to single-seaters in 2022, he went on to win the Chinese F4 Championship, along with the Formula Renault Super Challenge, and finished that year’s Macau Grand Prix in P2. Prior to entering the Formula 3 championship, Xie competed in the GB3 and Euroformula championships, adding numerous victories and experiences under his belt.
Xie’s rookie season was definitely a learning curve as he learnt to adapt to the new F3 car and the higher-level competition in 2025. The Chinese driver, however, showed very promising results in the last two races of the season despite the challenging season. Xie himself highlighted the need for consistent adaptation and tyre management as some of the key areas he had to learn to adapt to. His 2025 season highlights include his maiden championship point at the 2025 F3 Hungarian GP Sprint Race and his performance at the season finisher in Monza.
Xie’s promising F3 debut
The first time we saw Xie’s racing potential was during the season opener in Melbourne for the 2025 F3 Australian GP weekend. The rookie driver had finished the Sprint Race in P16, climbing a total of 9 positions from P26 where he had qualified. He would then go on to climb 7 positions in his debut Feature Race that same weekend and finish in P18.
These would not be the first time he climbed a significant number of positions in a race. Despite having little to no prior racing experience at many of the tracks on the 2025 F3 calendar, he was still able to climb a significant number of positions in many other races throughout the season. Recovery drives became a clear strength for the Chinese driver as seen from his performance at the 2025 F3 Monza Sprint Race.
Hungarian GP weekend: season best qualifying and maiden points
As we approached the second half of the 2025 F3 season, Xie was able to showcase more of his racing abilities as he returned to more familiar European tracks and got more comfortable with his new F3 car. His best performing weekend of the 2025 season came on round 9 of the 10-event calendar at the Hungaroring for the 2025 F3 Hungarian GP.
The weekend started off promising for the Chinese driver as he qualified in a career best P4 during Qualifying, a position significantly higher than his usual qualifying performance thus far in the series. This momentum only continued into the Sprint Race, where he finished P10 despite his struggles during the race and earned his first point in the championship.
Impressive climb at the season finale
The momentum only continued as we approached the season finale in Monza for the 2025 F3 Italian GP weekend. Xie showed significant improvement from his earlier performances in the season and once again proved that recovery driving was his strength on the track. Although he left the weekend empty-handed, it is worthwhile to note that he climbed a total of 14 positions during the Sprint Race and finished in the Top 15 after qualifying P25 earlier that weekend.
What’s next
Xie ended his rookie F3 season 29th in the F3 2025 Championship standings and had a point to his name after 10 rounds. Despite his initial struggles to adapt to the new car and new series, he has shown progress and promising results towards the second half of the season. Overall, he is not one to make mistakes on track, having only received two penalties thus far, with only one of them being his fault in Budapest for his collision with Ugo Ugochukwu.
His future in F3 remains unknown as he has yet to announce any signings for the 2026 season; however, the Chinese driver is still optimistic.
