Zachary David made the atypical move from Formula Regional Europe to Super Formula Lights this year despite having offers to step up to F3 and F2, and he is now gearing up for his first test in Super Formula machinery later this week. The Filipino spoke to Feeder Series about his career so far and the reasons he decided to race closer to his home country despite cultivating a promising career in European motorsport. 

By Finjo Muschlien

At just four years of age, David first sat in a kart in his home country, the Philippines. Two years later, he began racing on the Asian continent, and in 2018, he won the IAME X30 Southeast Asia karting championship in the Cadet class before making the switch to Europe the following year. 

Towards the end of 2022, he stepped up to F4, competing under the Maltese flag. For many drivers, such a move would be the culmination of years of planning before their 15th birthday. But for David, it was a decision made relatively quickly.

“We only really thought about it in 2022,” he told Feeder Series. “The last year in karting, we’re like, ‘What do we do after?’ And there’s a bunch of different championships.

“In the end, we settled on the Italian F4 with US Racing. I think we’ve always taken it somewhat step by step, never really too far into the future.”

At first, David entered in ADAC F4 just a week after turning 15, taking a best result of fifth in a race that just 11 drivers entered. He then competed in five races in Italian F4 in 2022, with a best finish of seventh in the second race at Monza.

The next year, his first full one in cars, was busy for David. He ran 47 F4 races, kicking off with the F4 UAE Championship. He raced for R-ace GP and took one win, finishing eighth overall in the drivers’ championship. He then entered the final round of the new Formula Winter Series and won both races. 

Though he was winless in Italian F4 and Euro 4 later that year, he still impressed by finishing seventh in both drivers’ championships and coming third and fourth in the respective rookie standings. 

For 2024, he stepped up to FRegional with R-ace for a dual campaign in the Middle East and Europe. 

“To step up to FRECA was quite a big challenge because there’s quite a lot of people who had more formula experience than I had,” he said. “But I think in the end, we were able to do quite well. I think we were able to maximise what we had that year.

“There were some points that we struggled as a team, but overall, I think it honestly wasn’t too bad.”

Once again, he was winless in both championships. In the Middle East, he came fourth overall with four podium finishes and defeated several drivers who would later impress in FR Europe, including runner-up James Wharton and Brando Badoer. In Europe, however, he couldn’t convert that pace into results and only finished 14th overall with one podium finish. 

For 2025, David remained in FR Europe alongside his main campaign in Super Formula Lights. In December 2024, he was announced to be driving for newcomers CL Motorsport, though he entered only rounds four to six and took a best race result of 14th. 

“We only joined really late because we already had confirmed the seat in Japan earlier. There were some commitments, some clashes in terms of priority. We chose to prioritise here in Japan,” he said.

“Working with the team CL compared to R-ace is definitely really different. R-ace is really already pretty established. They have their own working methods, and the car is pretty much as it is. The team already have a really big data set and everything, whereas in CL, everything is new.

“So it’s a new experience where I’m trying to develop the car, downloading all these manuals about the car just to try to learn more about it and be able to give feedback on not just development, but also like, just for my own learning as well. So I hope it’ll help me in the future.”

Next to the CL Motorsport project, David made the switch to B-Max Racing in Super Formula Lights, a step that has been very uncommon since the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, this step made sense for David and his family, as it meant he would move closer to his home in the Philippines and make it easier to balance racing and education.

“I wouldn’t say we ever considered to stop racing, because it’s always something I’ve really enjoyed and something I’ve been wanting to do,” David told Feeder Series. “But at the end of the season, we did get all these offers from Indy NXT, there were these LMPs, the GTs. There’s even some F3 and even like options for F2. But the costs these days have been somewhat unconscionable.

“We decided with everybody that we have to try to find something that’s more sustainable. And coming from my family, my family’s very big on education, so especially coming up to my final year of high school – because I’m also doing the International Baccalaureate program, the IB – it is quite difficult to balance everything with a lot of workload.”

“I don’t think Europe was the play or the direction we would move for the future,” David added, “and we started to think, ‘Where else can we go?’ Then Super Formula Lights in Japan looked really good because it’s near our home here in the Philippines, so balancing school and racing would be somewhat easier because of the flight. I can just fly in and out of the country rather than staying long months in Europe.

“We tried to balance what we thought was best for my future. I’m trying to have the best of a career in racing as well as I get to pursue education. So that was one of the biggest considerations, to be able to balance both.”

Compared with his previous racing campaigns, David’s SF Lights season did not go as smoothly. He finished the season in eighth in the drivers’ championship with one podium finish.

“Honestly, the last couple rounds have been quite difficult. I think we started quite all right in Suzuka,” he said. After a few days of testing at Motegi, David explained, “We just jumped in and drove.

“And you have to get used to track the car and even the tyres, so I think we adapted pretty well. The biggest thing right now is just a lack of experience on these tracks and also being able to drive a car like that with a lot more aero compared to what I’m used to.

“I don’t think it helped that we didn’t really have any testing either coming into the season, so we just started the race straight away. There was not much prior knowledge of how to drive the car or how to drive the tracks.

“And I think that’s been what the biggest learning curve was for me. It was quite clear in Fuji, when they cancelled day one, that it was just a lack of track time that really hampered our performance.”

Japan’s single-seater series are known for being difficult environments for foreigners. Most of David’s rivals have several years of experience on the six circuits the championship races on. Only American driver Kaylen Frederick – his B-Max teammate until the final round – and French racer Esteban Masson hail from outside of Japan.

“Even Kaylen is in his second year. Urabe and Nomura have been driving around the Japanese tracks for quite some time,” he said. “They already have these things in their head that they’re used to, so they just go out and drive where I have to figure out everything still, and then I can really start fixing the setups and making the car more comfortable.

“We always start on the back foot even though we do as much preparation as we can beforehand in order to close the gap somewhat. But yeah, it’s always never the same as actually driving on the track.”

Since 2022, David has competed in Tatuus cars, both in F4 and FRegional level. When he made the switch to SF Lights in 2025, he raced a Dallara car – in this case the Dallara 324 – for the first time.

“The car is a lot more complex,” David said. “The SFL car just has so much more details on different setup adjustments you can make and so much more detail on how the car can work compared to what a FRECA can do. So it’s definitely something good for experience, but anyways, racing-wise, I wouldn’t say it’s too different.”

David is used to racing at highly successful teams. In Italian F4 in 2023, his US Racing teammate Kacper Sztuka won the drivers’ title. In FR Middle East the following winter, he was part of the title-winning R-ace GP line-up alongside drivers’ champion Tuukka Taponen. Now at B-Max Racing, who won the drivers’ title in 2023 with Iori Kimura and 2024 with Syun Koide, David sees a different philosophy for success, one guided by both independence and shared wisdom.

“Each engineer will have their own ideology, and that’s the car the drivers will drive rather than in Europe, where it’s a shared ideology, you can say – where each engineer works together to build a car, a base of a car that all the drivers in the team will use,” David said. “Everyone’s sharing data and everything, but I think it’s just how it is where every engineer has their own set, how they want the car to be. It’s a lot more individual, I’d say.

“And having the experience of someone like Iori to help – he’s won the Super Formula Lights championship, so he knows how the car should behave around these tracks, especially for me since I don’t have any experience in the tracks. Some balanced feedback I might have might be different to what the actual thing should be, to what the actual car should feel like. So he’s always there to keep an eye out and help me accelerate the process of learning the tracks and learning in the car.”

As 2025 comes to an end, more and more international drivers are looking towards Japan’s single-seater series as an option to continue their careers – among them brothers Charlie and Oscar Wurz, expected to race in Super Formula and Super Formula Lights respectively next year. Amid this movement in the driver market, David is also exploring his options for a step up in the future. He will also participate in the Super Formula rookie test with B-Max on 12 December.

“The good thing about Super Formula Lights is that it is quite well known in the series of Japan that the drivers who do well there are usually quite good, so then they get moved up to either Super GT or Super Formula,” David said. “I’ve already been invited to some Super Formula and GT events, so it’s quite a nice experience to see and talk to people. But there’s nothing confirmed yet as of now, so there’s not much planned right now for beyond 2025.”

Header photo credit: Super Formula Lights