After going on hiatus in 2024, Formula 4 South East Asia returns this weekend for its first of five scheduled rounds in Malaysia and Thailand. Feeder Series tells you all you need to know about the series’ 2025 season.

By Maiya Intan

Motorsport promoters Top Speed have revived F4 SEA for the 2025 season after the 2024 edition of the series did not take place. No major changes have been introduced, but this season’s rounds will only take place on tracks within the SEA region. The 2023 season, which ran from October to December, featured a round in China as well as a non-championship invitational event in Macau on the first weekend of the 70th Macau Grand Prix.

In the 2023 season, Australia’s Jack Beeton came out on top with a total of 130 points as one of just three drivers to run the full season. Only 48 points off of first position was current F1 Academy driver and Mercedes junior Doriane Pin, who also won the rookies’ championship. In third place was French racer and 2021 FRegional Europe runner-up Hadrien David, who accumulated 75 points overall after sweeping the second round. AGI Sport, who ran Beeton, also took first place in the teams’ championship.

The calendar

The upcoming 2025 season will have two more rounds than 2023 did and will also take place in the middle of the year rather than the end. Kicking the season off with a race weekend in Sepang International Circuit, the first round will be a part of the Malaysia Festival of Speed package. The third round also stands out on the calendar, as it will be held on a street circuit in Bangsaen, Thailand.

• Round 1: Sepang International Circuit (May 1–4)
• Round 2: Buriram International Circuit (May 22–25)
• Round 3: Bangsaen Street Circuit (July 4–6)
• Round 4: Sepang International Circuit (September 4–7)
• Round 5: Sepang International Circuit (September 18–21)

The format

The format has changed slightly for the 2025 season. Instead of only having test sessions on Friday, F4 SEA will now add two more sessions on Thursdays, thereby starting the race weekend a day earlier than in 2023. Each test session will be an hour long. The 30-minute free practice session is now held on Friday rather than Saturday. 

Two 15-minute qualifying sessions are scheduled on Saturday. The first session will determine the order of the grid for the first race of the weekend and the second session for the third race. The grid of the second race is determined by the finishing positions of the first race, but the order of the top 10 racers will be reversed.

There will be three races in total each weekend. The accumulation of points for these races will follow the points system used in other Top Speed–run series this year, following a 30-22-18-15-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1 system. Two extra points will be awarded to the driver who sets the fastest lap in each qualifying session.

Where to watch

The three races of each round are expected to be available for streaming on YouTube. Practice and qualifying sessions will not be available for streaming but can be followed via live timing within Asia. Results are also posted here.

Teams and Drivers

BlackArts Racing

Returning to F4 SEA after its revival are BlackArts Racing, who had been sixth in the 2023 season’s teams’ championship. BlackArts won the Chinese F4 teams’ championship every year from 2017 to 2019 and secured both the teams’ and drivers’ titles in Asian Formula Renault five times in a row from 2015 to 2019. They have four drivers lined up for 2025 in F4 SEA.

The first driver announced for the season is rookie Ben Anh Nguyen (#37). Before stepping up to single-seaters, the 16-year-old Vietnamese driver placed first in the four-stroke sprint class of Formula Racing Vietnam’s 2024 International Karting Cup back in December. 

Joining Nguyen is Joshua Berry (#7), another newcomer to the open-wheel racing world. The 16-year-old Korean-Australian took part in the Singapore Touring Car Challenge at Sepang in March but failed to finish the race after qualifying eighth. 

Iñigo Anton (#33) returns to the F4 SEA grid for his first full single-seater season, having made his debut in the third and final round in 2023 and taken a best finish of fifth. The 20-year-old also raced in the fourth round of Australian F4 in 2024, finishing seventh and fifth in his first two races. The Filipino driver has won multiple titles in Toyota sports cars in his native Philippines, and he currently leads the Toyota Gazoo Racing Philippine Cup’s endurance class.

Also on the grid with BlackArts Racing is 19-year-old Rishon Rajeev (#11), who has F4 experience from racing in Indian F4 in 2023. That season, he took one victory and eight further podiums to come out second in the drivers’ championship, defeating 2024 Italian F4 frontrunner and Euro 4 champion Akshay Bohra. He later participated in the 2024 Indian Racing League as one half of the Bangalore Speedsters entry that finished seventh in the championship, with former W Series racer Caitlin Wood the other driver to pilot the series’ Wolf GB08 Thunder car.

Evans GP

Australian team Evans GP will also take part in F4 SEA this season in what is somewhat of a home series for Australian-Malaysian team owner Josh Evans. The team finished third in the teams’ standings for the 2023 GB4 Championship and second in Formula Trophy UAE last winter. Four drivers, three of whom have previously worked with Evans GP, will form the team’s line-up.

Seth Gilmore (#24) will join Evans GP for the 2025 season. This year, the 17-year-old Australian competed with the team in F4 Middle East, finishing in 25th place, and in the Malaysian Speed Festival’s GT86 x BRZ Cup in sports cars. He also finished on the podium multiple times in the 2024 season of Australian F4, which held a round in Sepang, and entered Formula Trophy UAE last year.  

After finishing in second place in the 2024 season of Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia, Thomas Yu Lee (#66) will compete in the masters class of F4 SEA. He had previously raced with Evans GP in GB4 in 2023, finishing in 14th place overall. Outside of his participation in single-seater racing, the Taiwanese-born American is an industrial designer who has founded several San Francisco–based design studios. 

Alex Sawer (#12), the second driver representing Vietnam, is next in the Evans GP line-up for 2025. The 16-year-old had raced in the last three rounds of 2025 FR Middle East, finishing in 24th place. In 2024, he had been seventh in Chinese F4, winning the season opener on the Chinese Grand Prix support bill, and 32nd in FR Europe in an Evans-backed KIC Motorsport entry.

Completing the line-up is Cheng Meng (#17), who recently had a best finish of 10th place in the first round of the 2025 Chinese F4 season. In 2024, he participated in the final round of Chinese F4 and in the first two rounds of Formula Trophy UAE, in which he finished only two races in 17th and 19th places.

Origine Motorsport

Origine Motorsport will return to F4 SEA this season after previously racing in the series as R&B Racing.. Under their current identity, the Chinese outfit won the teams’ championship for the 2024 season of GT World Challenge Asia, while they also scored points twice courtesy of Ruiqi Liu in FR Middle East over the winter.

After finishing 11th place in the last season of F4 SEA, Wang Zhongwei (#22) has returned to the grid with the team. While teaming up with endurance racing veteran Patrick Pilet, the Chinese racer finished fifth and ninth in the first two races of the 2025 GT World Challenge Asia’s Pro-Am Cup. He also finished 34th overall in the 2025 season of FR Middle East.

Star Performance

Also new to F4 SEA is Star Performance, who finished second overall in Gedlich Racing’s 6 Hours of Barcelona race while running, among others, Formula Renault 3.5 race winner Miloš Pavlović. The Thai team will join the series from the second round.

One of their drivers is Worapong Aiemwichan (#44), the third F4 rookie on this season’s grid. The Thai racer competed in the first round of the IAME Euro Series’ X30 Senior class in Cremona. He is also a race winner in the class in his domestic IAME series.

Another racer to make his debut is Ayrton Asdathorn (#51), who won the 2024 Toyota Corolla Altis GR Sport One Make Race series held in Thailand. The 17-year-old was a race winner in karting in his native Thailand and in IAME Asia.

Header photo credit: F4 South East Asia

Editor’s note, 4 May 2025, 5:10 CEST: A previous version of this article stated that the series would follow the standard FIA points system and would not award points for the fastest qualifier in each session. This year, F4 SEA awards a descending number of points to the top 12 finishers as well as two points to the fastest qualifier in each session.