Laurens van Hoepen delivered one of the drives of the day at the 2026 F2 Feature Race at the Australian GP, charging from eleventh on the grid to claim third place and secure Trident’s first podium since Baku in 2024. The Dutchman was a picture of calm and control throughout, making the most of the surrounding chaos to take a well-deserved place on the rostrum on the opening weekend of the season.
From P11 to the podium
Van Hoepen admitted he had not been expecting a podium finish at the 2026 F2 Australian GP when he lined up eleventh on the grid. A strong pit stop from Trident helped him jump a position in the pit lane, and from there, his pace did the talking.
“Super happy. I think we did a really good race starting from P11 for sure. [I] Was not really expecting to be on the podium but yeah, I think the team and I did an amazing job. The pit stop was really good from the team as well.”
“We managed to jump a position there and then also the pace looked really strong. We were able to keep the guys behind and at one point even catch Nico and Rafa in front. So yeah, obviously a good race and really happy with it.”
Making progress through the field was not straightforward, with powerful DRS making it difficult to convert opportunities into clean overtakes. Van Hoepen, however, found a way through.
“I mean like Niko [Tsolov] and Rafa [Câmara] said the DRS was quite powerful but then as soon as you’re in the DRS train it’s very difficult to actually make an overtake,” he said. “But then luckily there was some exciting stuff happening in front of me which meant I could go through quite cleanly, which helped me a lot. And then also with Varrone it was a bit tricky to get past but as soon as you have a good exit and the guy in front doesn’t have the DRS it’s not too difficult.”
Staying in the flow
Throughout a race that changed character multiple times, van Hoepen kept his focus and avoided being drawn into the chaos around him. When asked how difficult it was to reset mentally as the race rhythm kept shifting, he was refreshingly straightforward.
“It’s not something you really think about as long as you’re in the flow so you’re so focused on doing your own job that you don’t really have like ‘ah now everybody’s behind me again’. You basically just focus on doing your job and that helps.”
“I mean you speak with your engineers about what to do, where to push, how to keep the tyres a bit more in. Just the last safety car was of course then a bit always tricky when you got someone of the other strategy in front of you to manage but in the end there’s not so much you can do apart from focus on your own race and yeah do the right things.”
The phases of the F2 Australian GP Feature Race
When asked by Pit Debrief which phase of the race he felt he drove the best and which left the most on the table, van Hoepen was honest in his assessment.
“I think like the whole race it’s so important to yeah keep the pace up and really make as least mistake as possible because the level is so high and if you do a mistake you immediately feel the consequences.”
Van Hoepen continued, “I mean I definitely felt like overall the race was good, especially when I got the tyres ready after the pit stop. I felt like that was a really strong point just after like I got behind Dino [Beganovic] and I was able to kind of get the gap down a bit between Dino, Rafa and myself.”
“So that was just a really strong part of the race. And then I feel like I could have done a bit of a better job after the second safety car with a mistake that I made that I had to defend with Ollie [Goethe] but after that, I mean we recovered well and kept the tyres, got the tyres back and yeah kept it clean after that.”
A strong result for Trident
The podium was not just a personal milestone for van Hoepen but also a significant moment for Trident, who had worked tirelessly through the off-season to put together a competitive package. Van Hoepen was generous in his praise for the team’s efforts.
“Yeah I mean super happy. We’ve done so much work in the off-season already from when I joined the team in Baku last year.”
“We knew it was going to be a tough job but from that point on, we started working like crazy and I’m very impressed with the team how much they’ve done in the off-season to give me a car that’s capable of doing this in the first round already. I mean we knew we were on the right track after testing in Barcelona but we also still have a lot to improve, to be here already is a good start for sure.”
Nyck de Vries as a mentor
When asked by Pit Debrief how having Nyck de Vries as a mentor shapes his approach to not just the racing but also the pressures and politics that come with trying to break into Formula 1, van Hoepen was open about the value of that relationship.
“It’s super nice to have Nyck [de Vries] in my corner. Like you said he has so much experience in F2 but also in any other category outside of Formula 1, you know he’s a very established driver and he really knows how yeah this road works and then also to have him here this weekend helps.”
“We just mainly speak about the things we can do better and how the mindset should be going into a weekend. So yeah, to kind of learn from his experience is of course super nice.”
With a first F2 podium already banked and Trident showing genuine pace during the Australian GP Feature Race, van Hoepen has given himself and the team plenty of reason for optimism as the 2026 season gets underway.
