Polish driver Maciej Gładysz is set to make his FIA Formula 3 debut in 2026 with the ART Grand Prix team. Gładysz shared his enthusiasm, goals, and transition process to a new team, machinery, and tracks.
“I’m really excited,” he shared. “It will be my rookie season and obviously it’s a dream come true. Racing as well with such a great team like ART Grand Prix and competing against some of the most talented drivers in the world, it’s super nice.”
Learning and growing
The 17-year-old driver will kick off his rookie campaign during his first F3 appearance in Melbourne. He remains grounded about the challenge ahead: “As I said it will be my rookie season, so I am not putting any pressure on myself. I will just try to do my best, improve weekend by weekend, gain some experience every time, and also learn new things every time.”
“It would be nice to fight at the top, but it’s a super competitive championship, so that it will be really hard. The luck needs to be on the driver’s side sometimes, and everything needs to be working. Sometimes, it would be nice to have that luck,” Gładysz explained.
Building momentum
Gładysz has found such success in his single-seater career so far. He placed 3rd overall in the 2024 Formula Winter Series and went on to finish 3rd with 137 points in the Spanish F4 Championship that same year. Early in 2025, he won the Eurocup-3 Spanish Winter Championship and then competed in Eurocup-3, but only finished 10th with 88 points after being hit with many penalties throughout the season.
“That will be really important for the next season,” Gładysz noted on avoiding penalties in F3 before transitioning to his success. “We started off good this season, winning the Winter Series Championship in Eurocup.”
“Last year as well was good in Spanish F4, I finished in the top three, so honestly my single seater career is going well so far. I hope it continues to go in this direction, so next year as well will be quite strong.”
He added, “But as I said, it’s a super competitive championship, and it will be really hard. So it’s hard to predict how everything goes, and we are going to tracks that I have never been too, so it will be hard to say if I am straight on it or if I need time to adapt.”
From MP Motorsport to ART Grand Prix
“I’m feeling happy and confident being with them,” said Gładysz on his first few months with ART. “In the last two years, I have been working with MP Motorsport, but now I’m with ART.” Gładysz will be driving alongside two other rookie teammates, Kanato Le and Taito Kato.
Gładysz participated in the F3 post-season tests with ART Grand Prix and experienced a variety of mixed results. In Jerez, he placed 23rd, 17th, 23rd, and 26th across the four sessions.
“I am confident with my engineer. We are working well, and we made really good steps throughout the tests. In Jerez, we struggled a bit with the car as I was trying to adapt, so obviously I was not going to be the fastest on track, because it was my first time,” he explained.
Barcelona brought improvement as he finished 20th in the morning session of Day 1 before topping the timesheets in the afternoon with a 1:29.003. In the following session, he finished 18th before dropping to 29th.
“After we went to Barcelona and made a good step. We were super strong, competitive to the other teams in quali sessions, and Imola, we were quite strong again.”
Testing continued in Imola, where Gładysz finished 23rd, 29th, 19th, and 19th. He said, “It was my first time at Imola, so maybe the result was not the best, but honestly the car is feeling quite okay. We will see how the pre-season test goes, and then Australia. We will try to work as much as possible in Australia, just to be really strong there.”
Adapting to F3 machinery
When asked about the challenges he has faced so far, Gładysz responded, “I would say the race performances. The Eurocup-3 car I drove before, the tyre degradation was not as big as it is in F3.”
“You have one slide in Formula 3 and you are in a hard situation with your tyres. So you need to manage them well, you can’t just release the brakes as fast as possible. Also if you slide a bit with the rear at the beginning of the race, it will be really hard to keep the balance in the race.”
He further explained: “If you do everything well, then your race could be good. As well as that, when we did the race simulation, we did not fight with anybody, so we did not need to focus on the cars behind.”
“In the races, we will be fighting for positions, so you focus on both, overtaking and the tyres, thinking about how you can overtake someone without sliding. I think this will be the main key.”
Qualifying focus
Looking ahead to his debut 2026 season, Gładysz noted that his main goals include qualifying well and learning to manage tyres. “Obviously, if I qualify in the top 12, that would be nice. If you do that, the races should be easier. You already have strong drivers ahead, and maybe you can fight forward in the Sprint and then you can manage the race.”
“If you are leading and you defend well into the first corner, then you will not have anybody in front, then you have clean air and you can do your own race.”
He concluded: “Qualifying will be the most important, qualifying in the top 12 especially, but managing tyres in the race, that’s what I am mostly trying to learn about.”
