Théophile Naël finished 2025 in style, winning the Formula Regional World Cup after a promising rookie season in Formula 3 with Van Amersfoort Racing, and he has even bigger goals for next year. The Frenchman spoke to Feeder Series about his historic win in Macau, his journey in single-seater racing, and what’s next for him.

By Daniele Spadi

Naël won the Macau Grand Prix following a gutsy drive that showcased his raw speed as well as his racecraft.

After claiming pole position on Friday, the 18-year-old slipped to third during the qualifying race before dropping to fourth on lap 1 of the main race. A late safety car to retrieve polesitter and longtime leader Freddie Slater’s damaged car at R Bend, however, vaulted Naël into the podium fight.

With just two of 15 laps remaining, as he sat in third behind KCMG by Pinnacle Motorsport teammate Mari Boya and fellow Frenchman Enzo Deligny, Naël took matters into his own hands at the safety car restart. Heading into Lisboa, one of Macau’s most complex corners, he pulled off an unusual yet perfectly executed double overtake to snatch the lead.

That proved to be the race-winning move, as the safety car once again neutralised proceedings only seconds later following two more crashes. It was an interruption that lasted until the end of the race, thus crowning Naël the FR World Cup champion.

“I was not expecting that when I came here. I just wanted to make a fun race, to take some experience for next season as well for Monaco, because we know that this track can be really helpful for Monaco. But at the end, we won the race,” Naël told Feeder Series following the biggest win of his career. 

“The whole team deserved that win,” the Pinnacle driver added. “That’s the biggest success for them and as well for me. I hope the best is to come, but it’s a really good way to end up 2025.”

Despite being Naël’s first race victory since 15 September 2024, the win in Macau does not come as a surprise given his impressive résumé.

Naël began his single-seater journey in 2022, racing in the second half of Spanish F4 with Saintéloc Racing ahead of his first full campaign the following year with the team. He waltzed to the title in 2023, claiming eight wins and a total of 14 podium finishes in 21 races.

He then stepped up to the FRegional level in 2024, staying with Saintéloc while competing in both FR Middle East and FR Europe. He stood out as the team’s lead driver in both championships, finishing in 11th and ninth respectively while capturing one race win in each – the first-ever taste of victory for the French outfit in either series.

After two and a half years together, Naël parted ways with Saintéloc this year, graduating to F3 while joining Van Amersfoort Racing in the process.

“I did F4 and FRECA with [Saintéloc], but this season was a totally new challenge for me – new team, new engineer, new everything with a totally different approach,” he said. “Saintéloc was a French team, so the relationship was really close.”

The move to a Dutch outfit with an English-speaking staff could have presented him with somewhat of a language barrier. Instead, Naël took it as an opportunity.

“I had the chance to have a Spanish engineer in Saintéloc [Ignacio Cristóbal], so I was already speaking English, and that’s helped me a lot,” the Frenchman told Feeder Series.

“It was a good challenge as well. My engineer [Daniel Blackledge of England] has a typical accent, and at the beginning, it was hard to understand everything, especially in the car. But now it’s okay.

“When I came here in Van Amersfoort, everything was new. I had to learn how my engineer is working, how the team is working, how the mentality is. So far it’s been really good.”

Joining Van Amersfoort, Naël shared his maiden F3 season with fellow rookie Ivan Domingues, while Mexican Santiago Ramos brought experience to the table following a full F3 campaign the year before with Trident.

Despite his relative inexperience, Naël once again became the lead driver in terms of results, ultimately taking home 52 per cent of the team’s points and three of their seven podiums. Still, having an experienced teammate by his side proved essential to that points tally.

“I was still behind Santiago. I was learning a lot from him. Obviously, we were fighting a lot on track, but still with 100 per cent of respect every time,” Naël told Feeder Series.

“All three drivers [were] helping each other every time, every race. And as well at the beginning of the season, that was the key, especially during pre-season testing with Santiago, to develop the car, and he helped a lot in this development.”

Naël showed off his skills right from the get-go in 2025, claiming his maiden podium finish in the first feature race of the season in Melbourne. What was a promising start quickly turned into a tough opening stretch of the season, however, as he failed to score points in the next six races.

He then found his footing once more in Barcelona – a track where he had previously claimed two podiums in his title-winning Spanish F4 campaign back in 2023 – taking home fifth in the sprint and second in the feature.

Thanks to other top-five finishes in the Silverstone and Budapest feature races, Naël finished eighth in the standings with 72 points. With that, he matched his stated pre-season goal of finishing in the top 10 while helping Van Amersfoort to clinch fifth in the teams’ championship, their best finish since joining the series in 2022.

“We adapted quite well, all of us in the team,” Naël told Feeder Series. “With my teammates as well, we worked quite hard [and] we helped each other very well, so I think that was the key to success this season.”

The Saint-Étienne native has already revealed his 2026 plans: he will join Campos Racing for his second F3 season. He has already participated in the championship’s three post-season tests with the reigning teams’ champions.

“It was really good, to be honest – especially in Barcelona, in Imola in the wet as well, just to get used with the team, with my engineer, mechanics and everything,” Naël told Feeder Series in Macau.

“We have a really good potential to be in the same step of the podium as now in the standings in 2026. Let’s enjoy the win, and then we go back to work with Campos.”

And when asked about his ultimate goal for 2026, Naël was clear: “to be an F3 champion”.

Additional reporting by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency