At 13, his karting success turned heads at Red Bull HQ. Now, Thailand’s most highly regarded prospect since Alex Albon is gearing up for his rookie season in Spanish F4.

By Juan Arroyo

It was 18 September 2022. The OKJ karting world championship final was taking place on a sunny afternoon in Sarno, Italy. That day was, for dozens of F1 hopefuls, their best shot yet at impressing team academies and big-name agents.

Thirteen-year-old Tarnvanichkul didn’t know it yet, but this afternoon would mark the first big steps of his career.

His day almost immediately went south, colliding with another driver in one of the day’s preliminary races while going for the lead. He retired and would start the final down in sixth place. His title aspirations hung in the balance.

The Thai driver had shown blistering pace all year. After ten laps, he was back in first. Rival Adam Hideg faintly pressured him for the lead in the six laps that followed, but Tarnvanichkul was too far ahead.

At the end of lap 16, he took the chequered flag, and Thailand’s first karting world champion since Alex Albon was crowned.

Joining the Red Bull team

Only two days later, a representative from Red Bull, a company with Thai ownership, was on the phone with one of Tarnvanichkul’s close friends, saying that the organisation intended to sign the young driver to the Red Bull Junior Team.

The company was eager to make this happen. There had not been a Thai driver in the program since Albon. Tarnvanichkul ticked all the boxes for the development program and the company as a whole.

In mid-November, Tarnvanichkul was called to meet with long-time RBJT director Helmut Marko in Austria. The conversation was to the point: Marko acknowledged his performances and explained what it would take to stay in the team. The deal was signed.

A few days later, on November 24th, Tarnvanichkul announced himself as part of the F1 team’s academy.

The RBJT is known to be a pressure cooker environment. It chews up drivers and spits them back out with no mercy. 

“[Marko] wants the results and he wants them fast, and however you can get these results, so be it,” Tarnvanichkul said.

He will make his Spanish F4 debut in May, with only five starts at the F4 level under his belt. But his inexperience doesn’t matter too much to Red Bull, as they will pay attention immediately to his speed, results and nothing else. Tarnvanichkul knows that.

He displays an attitude synonymous with Marko’s ruthless approach. He wants to be on top from day one. But will the results come as quickly as he needs them to?

Getting to know the Campos family

Tarnvanichkul spent much of the winter trying to master the Formula 4 car. He was at the Spanish F4 post-season tests at the end of last year and has been present at virtually every session available since. He and his engineer at Campos Racing, Jorge García, worked closely over the winter months to acclimatise him to the new machinery. 

“Me and [García], we worked really hard to figure out all the little secret things, you know, all the little advanced things [of the F4 car],” Tarnvanichkul said.

“We arrived at the first test this season before the Winter Series and I was fast. I was in Barcelona, I was the fastest and I think that’s just [that] we put everything that we learned together and we just did what we spent all the post-season trying to master.”

The young driver appreciates having a deeper knowledge of the car when he’s on track and says being of a studious nature has helped him communicate with his engineer and find better setups.

“I’m quite theoretical in the sense that I look at the car not only as a living being. I have to bond with the car but also [look at it] as a mechanical piece,” he continued.

“I think out of everyone on the grid, I’m probably not the most talented, but I’ve always found my ways to even that out by knowing what’s under me very well or being a little bit more calculated.”

Tarnvanichkul says he has also focused on building a bond with his crew over the past several months. The 15-year-old has stayed multiple times at his mechanic’s house – owing to its proximity to Campos’ base – and the pair have played rounds of golf as a means of strengthening their relationship.

“I think first and foremost, people have to understand that engineers, mechanics, drivers – we’re all humans. So the easiest way to build a strong bond with your engineer or your mechanic is to do anything but racing, right?” Tarnvanichkul said.

“I travel a lot with the team in the same van as the mechanics and engineers, so 10 hours to pull apart, you obviously bond a little bit on the trip. So I think it’s probably the most important thing in motorsports to have a good relationship with your team, or with the people that matter in your team.

“Everyone knows that at some point in your racing career, you’re going to have some clashes with your teammates or team bosses for certain decisions that they did and you didn’t really like.”

“I think you have to understand that it takes time to heal those relationships but the ones that really have to be spot on are with your engineer and with your mechanic. [In] the end, it’s the engineer that really builds the car, because that’s the main difference, the setup.”

His first single-seater starts

Tarnvanichkul had his first F4 starts in February and March, racing in Formula Winter Series. He finished 22nd and 30th in two of three races of his debut weekend but retired from the third. Then, in Barcelona, one race was rained out while he finished 23rd and 11th in the others.

His results there were evidently nothing to write home about, but it can be classed as a learning period. That is supported by the fact he missed the first half of the championship, as he wasn’t old enough to compete – 15 is the minimum age requirement in FWS – until after the second round. Still, he is confident that his inexperience won’t play a big role during his rookie year. 

“There’s not only what meets the eye. There are things that we do behind the scenes and there are many things that you use to prepare for the first race,” Tarnvanichkul said.

“It shouldn’t affect me going into the first race. If you start in the front, even if you lose five positions, you’re still in the top 10, so the most important thing is the speed and the speed is not too bad, but we lack execution, which is one of the most important things for qualifying.”

High expectations from Marko

Helmut Marko can be described as the Red Bull Junior Team incarnate. He has headed the program since its inception in 2001 and has seen almost 100 drivers – among those multiple F1 world champions and race-winners – pass through.

Tarnvanichkul remembers his first conversation with Marko.

“He was very clear. He said, ‘You’ve obviously shown that you can perform under the circumstances that are important, and as long as you perform, we’ll keep you in Red Bull.’”

Tarnvanichkul also benefited from previous links to the energy drinks giant. He told Feeder Series that his parents “[have] always had some good connections with the Thai side,” and that his father is personally connected to Red Bull’s Thai ownership.

It becomes clear from speaking to Tarnvanichkul that Marko has had a big impact on himself and his career. The young driver describes the RBJT boss – or Dr. Marko, as he refers to him – as demanding, but “a man of few words.” The pair maintain a good relationship off track, and their conversations don’t tend  – or need – to extend beyond performance and results.

“[If] I don’t even bring silverware home, it’s not good enough. Dr. Marko always made that really clear, and that was one of the things that we had in that conversation.”

Tarnvanichkul recalls one of Marko’s dialogues from the day they met in Austria. 

“He said, ‘You have to perform and performing means bringing trophies home. And I don’t care how you get there, but that’s all I want to see. I want the results.

“‘If you can bring me the results, I’ll be a happy man. If you can’t, then we have to talk. We have to see what’s going on. Is it your fault? Is it the team’s fault? Is it just bad luck?’

“Even if you’re unlucky, he’s like, ‘I want drivers that win, and if you can win, but you’re always unlucky, I don’t want you. If you’re first and your engine always explodes or something goes wrong, I don’t want you because you’re not going to win,’ so that’s his mentality.”

Tarnvanichkul came away from that conversation knowing that nothing short of silverware would be expected of him at Red Bull.

That thought stuck with him during his final year in karting. With a place in the junior team secured, Red Bull had more eyes on him.

The Thai driver remembers “high tensions” during a period in 2023 in which he and his karting team were not performing as expected. He recalls that after Marko spoke to the team, he was on the podium three consecutive times.

“He became quite happy after that,” Tarnvanichkul said.

Managing his time

It’s no secret working in racing demands incredible amounts of time. That’s no different for drivers, even the youngest of them.

Since moving to Italy early in his career, Tarnvanichkul has spent countless hours inside factories and garages – and away from his parents. In a regular month, the 15-year-old said he spends two-and-a-half weeks near his team’s base in Spain, and the remaining time at his usual home.

He says a “fruitful upbringing” has prepared him for life as a racing driver, despite the time spent away from his family.

“I guess once you’re so far away from your parents and once you come back to them, they tend to be a little bit more lenient with you. They let you do what you want and they’re always very supportive.”

“I was never left with the nannies. If there was a gala to attend for my parents, I would be right there with them, even as a five-year-old. Once you start to have these experiences and you start to meet people that are really high in terms of society or they’re extremely smart, you learn from them.”

“I’m very thankful to have personal friend group of people that is quite old compared to me. I think it’s very important to have people that are miles in front of you. In life, you should always have someone that you can put a reference to. I reference the people around me.”

Tarnvanichkul ironically spends the little free time he can find doing virtual racing – during our interview, he said he had logged nine hours in his simulator the day prior. Away from any motorsport activities, he enjoys playing golf with family and friends.

“It’s fun to do some [sim] races with your friends. Sometimes you do some endurance races just for fun, and you sit there on the simulator for eight to 10 hours and it’s good fun.”

“I [also] play a lot of golf because I have many friends that play a lot. My parents always played a lot of golf and I think it’s really relaxing, [spending] four hours of your time in just nature.”

“It’s always very relaxing, even though sometimes I get quite competitive with my dad and my mom and I play quite well. It always has that little competitiveness, but in the end it’s always just to relax.”

First full single-seater campaign ahead

In two weeks, Tarvnanichkul will be at Jarama Circuit for the Spanish F4 season opener. Towards the end of the interview, I asked him about Red Bull’s expectations for him. 

“The expectation is to win,” he said.

“It’s always been like that. I hold myself to a really high standard and I end up putting more pressure on myself than everyone combined. P2 is not good enough for me, and I’m saying this on a very realistic term.”

“If I go to Jarama and I finish P2 in all the races and I’m second in the championship, it’s not good enough for me. I don’t care if I’m a rookie or not. It’s quite a barbaric mentality to have. But I think if you’re good enough, it’s not an excuse. You should always point to win no matter if you’re a rookie or not.”

“Realistically, top three in the championship should be what we aim for. But seeing how the championship is this year, it’s extremely close. I think we’re going to arrive to the last round [fighting] if it keeps going how it is going right now.”

The feat won’t come easy to the 15-year-old, who, it should be noted again, has a total of five starts in F4. Clear contenders have been difficult to identify from testing results, but Campos Racing alone is rife with competition from other talented rookies, not to mention MP Motorsport and other potential ‘dark horses.’

Tarnvanichkul has been stuck in the midfield for most of pre-season testing. His results from Formula Winter Series – although early in the game – add to the story of a driver who’s simply not where he wants to be yet in terms of pace.

Should he turn into a contender, he’ll likely be racing others much more experienced for the title. That’s not to say winning it is impossible, but the scale of the challenge should not be underestimated.

“There’s a lot of people that I’ve seen from karting that have dominated karting and they go into single-seaters and they struggle. There’s a lot to look forward to this season, [because] there’s a feeling that you kind of have to prove yourself in a way because it’s a different world.”

“We all come, in Campos especially, as very highly decorated karting drivers. I’m world champion, Jan [Przyrowski] was third place in the world, Nathan [Tye] is vice-European champion, you know, there’s our P3 in Europe. Then we have also Andrés [Cárdenas] that’s doing another season, James Egozi that’s also [part of] Red Bull.”

“But everyone starts from zero in cars, and the quicker you can adapt is normally the person who’s the fastest on track at the end.”

It’s not lost on him that the biggest talents are shining right out of the gate in F4 nowadays. If he wants all of F1 – and not just Red Bull – to pay attention, Jarama is the place for Tarnvanichkul to start delivering.

Header photo credit: Daniel Bürgin / Formula Winter Series