Turkish Rookie talent Alp Aksoy claims Formula Trophy 2025 title

United Arab Emirates December 13, 2025:

Fifteen-year-old Turkish starlet Alp Aksoy is the 2025 Formula Trophy champion at the end of his first-ever campaign in car racing. Mumbai Falcons Racing Ltd’s karting graduate only made his competitive debut in cars two weeks ago in the opening round at Dubai Autodrome. He achieved good results there and at the second round in support of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to enter the final weekend second in the points.
 
Aksoy went on to claim second place in the opening race before winning the finale, to wrap up the first of what will surely be many car racing titles. But he had to keep everything inch perfect in order to prevail.
 
Such is the compact nature of the three-round, seven-race Formula Trophy series that a host of drivers entered the weekend with a mathematical chance of lifting the crown. Pre-weekend series leader Niccolò Maccagnani had an unlucky first race when he went out on the opening lap, while victory in that race for Rowan Campbell-Pilling of Xcel Motorsport put the 17-year-old British driver firmly in contention. Prior to the final race, Aksoy led Campbell-Pilling by 11 points, Maccagnani by 14, with Dubai race winner Theo Palmer nursing a slender hope, 24 adrift.
 
All Aksoy needed from the final race was a third-place finish, but he kept himself out front throughout to win the Formula Trophy title in style. Meanwhile, fourth place allowed Pinnacle Motorsport-run Italian Maccagnani to leapfrog Campbell-Pilling once more for second in the final classification by just a single point, albeit 27 behind the victorious Aksoy. In the Rookie classification, Aksoy returned a perfect score of seven wins in seven races to defeat runner-up Arthur de Doncker by 95 points. To add further to the joy around Aksoy, he anchored yet another Teams title for the Prema-run Mumbai Falcons Racing.

Race 1

Rowan Campbell-Pilling earned pole position, and was joined on the front row by Alp Aksoy. It was Aksoy who got the best of the start and, although Campbell-Pilling moved across sharply on him, the Turkish talent bravely kept his foot hard down and squeezed through the gap to take the lead at the opening corner.
  
Campbell-Pilling was not giving up, and his pressure on Aksoy paid off at the end of the second lap when he dived down the inside at Turn 6 to snatch back the lead. Aksoy tried to retaliate with an attempted move around the outside of Turn 9, and in turn this battle allowed Swedish Red Bull Junior Scott Kin Lindblom (Hitech TGR) to close up and briefly make it a three-car fight at the front.
 
Lindblom soon fell away and, although Aksoy remained close to the leader for several laps, Campbell-Pilling gradually built his advantage and was over one second in front by just after half-distance. Eventually he crossed the finish line 1.081 seconds ahead of Aksoy, who made it six Rookie class wins out of six.
 
After the race, Campbell-Pilling was given a five-second penalty for pushing Aksoy off the track away from the start. But Aksoy was given an identical penalty for gaining an advantage by passing Campbell-Pilling while off the track. Such was the gap that the leading duo had opened up over their pursuers that the two penalties combined did not affect the result at all.
 
Lindblom steadily slipped into the clutches of Dubai’s Adam Al Azhari (Yas Heat Racing) and Hitech team-mate Nina Gademan. The Dutchwoman had made a superb start to rise to third at the beginning of the race, but was passed by Lindblom at Turn 6 on the opening lap, and then by Al Azhari at Turn 1 on the third tour. But Gademan remained close to the duo in front. Despite the best efforts of Al Azhari, Lindblom held on for the final position on the podium, with Al Azhari fourth and Gademan fifth.

That trio was joined in the closing stages by David Cosma-Cristofor and Yuta Suzuki, who had started 15th and 16th respectively but emerged unscathed from a hectic start of the race in the upper midfield. Xcel-run Romanian Cosma-Cristofor passed the AKCEL GP car of Suzuki on the sixth lap to take sixth place, and this is how they finished, narrowly adrift of Gademan. But Cosma-Cristofor was penalised five seconds after the race for shortcutting the Turns 6-7 chicane, relegating him to ninth in the results, and moving Japanese racer Suzuki up to sixth.
 
Australian Hunter Salvatore (Evans GP) and Emirates racer Theo Palmer (Hitech) swapped eighth position on numerous occasions in the first half of the race before settling in this order, shadowed in 10th by American Payton Westcott (Mumbai Falcons). Salvatore and Palmer moved up to seventh and eighth respectively when Cosma-Cristofor’s penalty was applied.
 
Just outside the overall points were Mumbai Falcons’ Bernardo Bernoldi, son of Brazilian ex-F1 racer Enrique, and X GP-run Swede Leon Hedfors, who were second and third respectively in the Rookie class.
 
There was disaster for Niccolò Maccagnani. The pre-weekend championship leader qualified third, but immediately dropped to fifth, and then contact at Turn 12 forced the Ferrari F1 protégé out of the race on the first lap.

Race 2

On his first appearance in the Formula Trophy series, Tommy Harfield appeared to have secured pole position for the second race. But, as the chequered flag fell for the end of qualifying, Alp Aksoy was on a superb lap, and it was he who lined up at the front, 0.147 seconds clear of the X GP car of British racer Harfield.
 
Aksoy got away well at the start of the race to lead Harfield, while Scott Kin Lindblom emerged from a three-wide charge into the first corner in third place, after going around the outside of Niccolò Maccagnani and Nicholas Stati.
 
This was the order when, halfway around the second lap, the safety car was called. Felipe Reijs and Payton Westcott had collided at Turn 6, and both cars were stranded in the runoff, with Westcott adjudged to be to blame by the stewards.
 
There was enough time for seven laps of racing once the clean-up operation was complete, and Aksoy nailed the restart to perfection to instantly pull out a gap over Harfield. From then on Aksoy was largely untroubled, while Harfield kept those behind him at arm’s length for second.
 
Lindblom had eyed a move around the outside of Harfield at Turn 9 after the restart, but he then fell back slightly. Just as he did in race one, Lindblom showed good racecraft to secure another third place in the face of attack from Maccagnani and Stati. Maccagnani spent most of the race in fourth, but on the last lap he found the AGI Sport car of Australian Stati going around his outside at Turn 6 and claiming the inside for Turn 7. Maccagnani fought back on the charge to the finish line, but Stati just got for the verdict in a photo finish. Stati, however, was given two five-second penalties for events that occurred earlier in the race – one for forcing Maccagnani off track at Turn 7, one for gaining an advantage by exceeding track limits at Turn 1 – and he was demoted to ninth in the results.
 
Kasper Schormans, the Dutch karting star making his debut in car racing with Evans GP, did a terrific job to shadow the battle in front and eventually be classified fifth, and took second in the Rookie class behind the dominant Aksoy. Rowan Campbell-Pilling lost ground on the opening lap, but a superb manoeuvre on Hunter Salvatore at Turn 12 on the eighth lap gave him sixth position after Stati’s penalty. Behind seventh-placed Salvatore finished Theo Palmer. With Stati ninth, it looked as though Adam Al Azhari had claimed the final point – a fine effort to claw his way from the back of the field after stalling at the start. But the local hero dropped out of the points owing to a five-second penalty for moving forwards before the start, so 10th eventually went to Australian Noah Killion (AGI).
 
Third in the Rookie class went to AKCEL GP’s ever-consistent Belgian Arthur de Doncker.

Team/Driver/Partner Enquiries:

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Matthijs Hoitink matthijs.hoitink@gmail.com