Photo credit: Formula Regional Americas PR

Heading into the 2025 season, the most successful partnership in the history of the Formula Regional Americas Championship will disband, and the series and its championship race will be changed significantly because of it.

Crosslink Competition and Kiwi Motorsports combined as one team over the past five seasons, winning 32 of 37 races across 2023 and 2024 in a dominant reign where Callum Hedge and Patrick Woods-Toth cruised to titles.

The two teams have split ahead of the 2025 season and will compete separately, with the spoils of the roster being divided in a near-equal fashion. Their driver lineups, expected to carry 3-4 drivers each throughout the season, will be the two pre-eminent championship contenders.

But for the first time since powerhouse TJ Speed Motorsports left the series at the end of 2022, a new challenger is emerging to find themselves at the forefront of the series. Canadian-based Atlantic Racing, with their driver lineup of F4 champion Daniel Quimby, returning driver James Lawley and one of Quimby’s championship rivals Connor Roberts, will win races from the first drop of the green flag.

Atlantic has already seen success in F4, winning the championship with Quimby in 2024. Adding Roberts, a driver who picked up a win and ten podiums last season, will add greatly to their lineup. However, it is worth noting that Roberts is competing under an entry labeled “Atlantic Racing with Team Roberts Racing,” which means he likely won’t be competing for the team in the teams championship standings.

If Roberts’s results show up separately in the team’s championship, it will be hard for Atlantic to keep up with Crosslink and Kiwi, both of which are bringing multiple experienced drivers back to the grid. 

Those three teams will have their first action of the season this upcoming weekend, when the series will take part in three races to open their year at NOLA Motorsports Park on March 27-30.

The series is also going to carry an increased prize package for 2025, with the champion receiving $100,000. The calendar has been extended from 19 to 21 races in 2025. The Circuit of the Americas is leaving the series and will be replaced by the return of both Virginia International Raceway and Barber Motorsports Park. 

A full breakdown of the schedule and where to watch FR Americas can be found at the end of this preview.

But now, it’s time to look at the teams and drivers of the series in further depth ahead of the first round of the season:

The title fight:

Picking a title favorite in FR Americas in 2025 is a difficult task, as there are a grand total of five candidates on three separate teams who stand near the top. Yes, that’s how wide-open this title race is.

Since the last champion in 2024 moved up from F4, Quimby is a driver who is in a unique position to repeat his title from last season at the next level. Of the fourteen races the series ran in 2024, Quimby only finished outside the top five once and picked up at least one podium at every circuit the series ran at. Quimby showed excellent speed everywhere he went in 2024 and showed composure in his title fight to close out the championship battle. However, with the limited car count he faced in 2024, it’ll be interesting to see how he adapts to faster competition in 2025.

The highest-placing driver who is returning to the series is Jett Bowling, who finished third in the championship in 2024. Bowling showed incredible consistency last season, knocking out eight podiums in the final twelve races. He’s gonna return to Kiwi Motorsport in 2025 and be able to chase after that first win. If his three second-place finishes in 2024 can turn into a few trips to the top spot, I could see Bowling in the fight to pick up the FR Americas title in 2025.

Titus Sherlock finished only a point and a half behind third-place and three behind second, and will head to Crosslink Motorsports with a shot to reach the top spot of the title fight in 2025. He’ll have a lot of experience this year, grabbing experience in both FR Americas and in USF Pro 2000 with Turn 3 Motorsport. Sherlock is a fast driver who finished last season stronger than he started, with five top-two finishes in the final seven races.

Speaking of drivers who picked up wins in 2024, the Brazilian driver for Kiwi Motorsports Bruno Ribeiro competed in only the final round of FR Americas last year but won the season finale at the Circuit of the Americas in only his second race in the series. Ribeiro will be a driver to watch as his time to adapt to the FR Americas car has been lightning quick, and he’ll take strides quickly toward being a competitive driver in 2025.

Also with the South American cohort drivers in the series in 2025, Nico Ambiado returns to FR Americas after picking up one win in 2024. Despite missing three races in the season when he did not compete at Mosport, he still finished in fifth place just over 30 points off of Bowling and Sherlock in the fight for second in the standings. If Ambiado can run a full season in Kiwi equipment, he will be right near the front of the field as he continues to contend for race wins and podiums just like he did last year.

Also in contention:

I talked about Connor Roberts earlier in the preview as someone who will be a key part of Atlantic’s fight upward toward the top of grid in 2025, and after his third-place finish in F4 US in 2024, he’ll be a driver who will be a crucial part of the fight for the team making progress next year. He’ll be competing against his championship rivals in 2025 and while it will be an adjustment upwards, his strong finish in 2024 with seven consecutive podiums will give him a wave of momentum going into the new season.

After a successful rookie season in 2024, Nicole Havrda is combining her FR Americas experience this year with a new challenge in F1 Academy with Hitech. She had four podium finishes in 2024 alongside a sixth-place finish in the championship, with one of those podium finishes coming in the season finale at the Circuit of the Americas. While Havrda has speed on many circuits, keep an eye especially in her sophomore season at Road America, where she picked up two podiums and an additional fifth-place finish in 2024.

Nicolas Stati kicked off his rookie campaign in F4 US with a win in Road America and was able to ride off his early momentum to finish second in the championship in 2024. If Stati proved anything in 2024, it was his ability to adapt to cars quickly as he hopped right into the new-gen car and performed instantly. He’ll have to adapt again but got experience running in a Formula Regional level car in his home region when he competed for Kiwi Motorsport in the Formula Regional Oceania Championship, the same team he’s driving for in 2025.

One driver who is getting more junior series experience than everyone else in America is Brady Golan, who is competing in FR Americas for Toney Driver Development alongside his USF2000 season and his sports car commitments, having driven in the LMP3 class in the IMSA SportsCar Challenge earlier this year. Golan only ran one round last year in FR Americas but made an impact when he landed on the podium in second place in the final race of the season.

If you had to place a guess on a lesser-known driver who will make an impact in 2025 in FR Americas, I’d place that on JENSEN’s Jake Pollack, who is making a jump straight from JS F4 to FR Americas in 2025. In JS F4, Pollack picked up two podiums, both at tracks he will race at again this year. Pollack picked up a ninth-place finish at the Circuit of the Americas last season in a year where he ran two races in FR Americas.

Joining them in the field:

Pollack’s teammate in New Orleans for JENSEN will be Athan Sterling. Sterling joins the field after having competed in six races in Ligier JS F4 in 2024, where he scored a best finish of 12th. Sterling also competed a partial season in the Formula Pro USA Championship, a West Coast regional-level series where he ran a F4 car.

Alex Benavitz is taking a step up to Formula Regional with Crosslink after competing in F4 US in 2023, where he finished 15th. Barrett Wolfe, who picked up two podiums in F4 US in 2024 and finished fifth in the championship, will round out the Crosslink lineup.

James Lawley will return for a second season with Atlantic after finishing ninth in the FR Americas standings in 2024. Speaking of drivers returning to the series, Kevin Janzen and Anthony Autiello will be back as well to compete in the master’s class.

Rounding out the field which will be rolling off the grid in NOLA is Lincoln Day, who will be driving for Toney Driver Development after finishing seventh in F4 US last season.

Five predictions for 2025:

I do love the composition of the FR Americas field in 2025 and believe that it is maybe the best the series has had ever. There is going to be some incredible racing going on amongst a wide variety of competitors. Here are some things I could see happening in 2025.

Prediction 1: The F4 graduates start strong and win races early in the season.

I think there’s a lot of hesitation toward believing in the class coming up from F4 US because of how small the car counts were in the series last year, but I truly think guys like Quimby, Stati and Roberts are going to be instantly competitive in the series. It would surprise me if they’re not near the top of the field early on and challenging the established drivers at the top of the pack.

Prediction 2: At least six drivers win races.

This one kind of feels like a given with how unusually stretched the talent in the field is, but there will be so many different drivers fighting for wins and with a calendar that is longer than any the series has had before, I think we’ll see a wide variety of drivers taking wins.

Prediction 3: Atlantic Racing has a breakout year and takes their place among the top teams.

This ties into the F4 US prediction, but I think this is the year where Atlantic Racing emerges from the middle of the pack where they were in 2024 to challenge for wins this year. Quimby and Roberts are fantastic pickups and I think they’ll be right up near the front of the field all season long.

Prediction 4: The car count will be larger at the end of the season than the start.

One of the trends that we see in all junior racing series is that once you have a larger car count, it will begin to snowball. I could definitely see 20-25 drivers taking part in at least one race in 2025 and it will be curious to see what new teams and drivers will buy in throughout the season.

Prediction 5: Winning at least one race in NOLA will be crucial for a championship run.

If I created a list of every FR Americas champion who did not win a race in the first round of the season, that list would be entirely empty. Every champion has been on the top of the podium at least once in the first weekend of the season, and I expect this year to be no different.

Calendar:

All races will be streamed on the SpeedTour TV YouTube channel, with select races also being televised throughout the season on SPEED SPORT 1.

Races 1-3: NOLA Motorsports Park – 3/29, 3/30

Races 4-6: Road America – 5/15-5/18

Races 7-9: Indianapolis Motor Speedway – 6/12-6/15

Races 10-11: Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course – 6/19-6/22

Races 12-14: New Jersey Motorsports Park – 7/31-8/3

Races 15-17: Canadian Tire Motorsports Park – 8/28-8/31

Races 18-19: Virginia International Raceway – 9/18-9/21

Races 20-21: Barber Motorsports Park – 10/17-10/19