Laurens van Hoepen jumped straight into Formula Regional machinery at the beginning of his single-seater career, opting to bypass F4 championships as a whole. In the most recent Feeder Series Podcast episode, the Dutchman, who recently graduated to F2, opened up about the positives and negatives that came with such a decision.

By Daniele Spadi

In 2020, the Dutchman enjoyed multiple top-10 finishes in important karting competitions such as the FIA Karting European Championship and the WSK Champions Cup in the OK class. From there, he had the option to jump to F4 racing the following year, as many other karters his age did.

Van Hoepen, however, opted to stay in the karting world, albeit in shifter karts. He competed in the KZ2 category in 2021, open to drivers aged 15 and older. The category pits young talents against some of the best and most experienced kart racers in the world.

“We thought that doing KZ was a really good step,” Van Hoepen told the Feeder Series Podcast. “I still agree that it is a very good learning school because you learn so much with tyre saving, race craft, even qualifying in the beginning, which is super nice.

“You drive against super experienced guys. In OK and OKJ, you drive against people your own age, but then you go to KZ, and you’re driving against all these, let’s say, old foxes that know all the tricks and everything. You really learn so much from it.”

As he switched to circuit racing later that year, the experience he had previously gathered paid dividends. Van Hoepen joined the FRegional-level Ultimate Cup Series mid-season in 2021 and dominated the three rounds he entered en route to third in the final standings. This partial campaign prepared him well for his 2022 FR Europe season with ART Grand Prix, and he thus skipped what is usually the first step on the feeder series ladder.

“F4 is not a very powerful car. It doesn’t have a lot of downforce. We were making the decision of [whether] you really benefit from doing it as much as doing something else,” the 20-year-old explained. “In hindsight, I do wish we would have done some F4 testing because this is something I didn’t do at all, which I think would have benefitted me.”

Van Hoepen took four points finishes in his debut FR Europe season. He struggled to find consistency over one lap, starting inside the top 10 in only the two Monaco races. The experience then came in handy for his 2023 campaign, in which he qualified in the top three in Zandvoort for both races and found the top 10 in Budapest, Le Castellet and Monza too.

“Skipping F4 made it a bit more difficult, especially qualifying-wise,” he said.

“A lot of the time I was very, very quick in nine out of ten corners, but then in the tenth corner I made a mistake and would lose three tenths, and instead of being on pole I would be P10 or  P11 or P12 or whatever. I think that’s what I missed with [not] doing F4 – all all the testing, where you just go to F4 testing and put six, seven new sets of tyres per day and just really get that qualifying practice in, which I’ve missed.”

“Because I did KZ racing, I think I did learn a lot race pace–wise, which maybe I wouldn’t have gotten as much if I had done F4, so I felt I was strong in that. And setup-wise, you have a feeling of what you miss and what you need,” he said.

In 2024, Van Hoepen joined the F3 grid for the first time while staying with ART. He showed his racecraft straight away, fighting for the win in his very first race during the sprint in Bahrain before ultimately crossing the line in second. Two further sprint podiums led him to finish in 13th in the drivers’ standings, and he also showed his qualifying improvements by taking pole position at the Hungaroring.

Van Hoepen went one better this past season, taking 12th in the standings with two podiums and three fourth places, though inconsistency prevented him from fighting for a spot in the top 10. After the F3 season ended, he made his F2 debut at Baku with Trident, racing with a team other than ART for the first time in two and a half years.

With the benefit of hindsight, would the 20-year-old change anything about his unconventional jump?

“Overall, there’s something to say for both,” he said. “In the end, I think we could’ve done it a bit differently by doing a lot more testing in F4, because I didn’t do any testing in F4 before jumping in a Formula Regional car, so that was quite a big step. But at this point, I have got so much experience that I have at least caught up everything that I didn’t know before.”

To dive deeper into Laurens van Hoepen’s career and future plans, listen to the latest Feeder Series Podcast episode featuring host Jim Kimberley and F3 editor Daniele Spadi, released 28 October.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency