The Formula Winter Series was the headline junior single-seater event of the weekend with a round at a wet Portimão, while the compact YACademy Winter Series offered USF Juniors drivers valuable pre-season preparation.

By Feeder Series

Two rounds in Portugal, two rounds under rainy skies. The Formula Winter Series’ second round at Portimão began much as the first one at Estoril did a fortnight ago, though a clearer pecking order emerged through the spray. Read on to find out who finished where.

The other track action of the weekend took place in the YACademy Winter Series, which held six races in just four days in Florida as a winter series for USF Juniors drivers.

On Wednesday evening at Sebring International Raceway, Polish driver Karol Pasiewicz topped the superpole session in the wet over Victor Couto, but it was 12-year-old Chip Ganassi junior Cam Becker who came out on top in race one. The top 10 were then reversed for race two, with 2025 Ligier Junior Formula Championship driver Max Mokarem starting from pole. However, he failed to finish the race, which was won by returning Exclusive Autosport driver Brenden Cooley by just 0.265 seconds over Bex Cranston. 

The third Sebring race was moved to Saturday morning on the Homestead-Miami Speedway roval because of severe weather. The top three drivers all finished within a tenth of a second, with Colin Aitken was victorious, Couto second and Pasiewicz third.

Becker took pole for the regular Homestead races and claimed his second victory in race one in dominant fashion. Aitken won the second race of the weekend, before Becker fought back to win race three just moments before this article’s publication. With that victory, he is also understood to have sealed the championship title, making him the series’ second consecutive 12-year-old champion after Kai Johnson won last year.

In the sports car racing world, 2025 Spanish F4 alumnus Alexander Jacoby was part of the #17 CLX Motorsport line-up that clinched the Asian Le Mans Series title in the LMP3 class this weekend at Dubai. And back at Portimão, Canadian racer Taegen Poles, a member of the Feeder Series Discord server’s moderation team and a W Series longlisted driver in 2019, made her sports car racing debut in the 6 Hours of Portimão in the Razoon – More Than Racing GT4 entry. The #70 Porsche Cayman that she co-drove with Gregor Schneider and Daniel Drexel finished the race with 91 laps completed but fell short of the threshold of 75 per cent of laps completed necessary to be classified.

Formula Winter Series: Van Langendonck takes two wins in dominant showing at Portimão

Dries Van Langendonck finished the second Formula Winter Series weekend with two more wins and 60 points to add to his championship lead, giving him a comfortable advantage of 42 over Ary Bansal before the season’s halfway point.

In the first qualifying session, Ethan Lennon took pole position with a time of 2:05.468 around the damp 4.653-kilometre track. Van Langendonck’s time was a mere 0.080 seconds slower than his South African teammate’s, with Ary Bansal a further 0.527s behind. 

But Van Langendonck’s hopes of overhauling Lennon vanished as soon as he failed to get off the line in a damp race one. A similar fate befell Alfie Slater just behind him, and Pedro Lima hit Slater’s stationary chassis, sending carbon fibre flying and the Brazilian’s car spinning. 

That incident, plus a stranded Zoe Florescu at the exit of Turn 3, caused a lengthy safety car deployment. Once it returned to the pits on lap six, Lennon fired off into the first corner with Bansal and Thomas Bearman on his tail, but Bansal quickly went past at Turn 1. Moments later, Emmilio Valentino Del Grosso’s race ended at Turn 3, bringing out the safety car again on lap eight.

The safety car came in two laps later, and Bansal, who held the field at slow speed until the clock ticked down to zero, retained the lead for the sole remaining racing lap to take his first FWS win. Lennon was demoted from second place to eighth after receiving a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, promoting Bearman to second and Teodor Borenstein to third. Despite having just three racing laps, Van Langendonck recovered to seventh after his opening-lap stall.

Race control decided on a rolling start for race two, which likewise began on a wet track. Entering the first corner, Van Langendonck snatched the lead after polesitter Lennon went wide, while fifth-place starter Oleksandr Savinkov spun following minor contact with Rocco Coronel

From there, the Belgian driver never looked back, taking his second win of 2026. Slater passed Lennon for second at Turn 4 on lap five but finished with an 8.138-second gap to Van Langendonck, with Lennon in third completing a Rodin podium lockout.

There was a late battle for fourth on lap 12 as Coronel and Bansal went side by side into Turns 6 and 7. Bansal’s drift through Turn 8 brought Bearman into the fight. Bansal and Bearman then collided at Turn 3 on the last lap, and Aleksander Ruta slid past Bearman for sixth.

An additional formation lap was added in race three and two minutes taken off the clock because cars were out of position on the grid. Savinkov took the lead from Van Langendonck before Turn 1, but Van Langendonck regained it at Turn 5 just before the weekend’s final safety car deployment for a collision between Vittorio Orsini and Tomas Rudokas at Turn 3. 

The safety car was recalled at the end of lap three, giving Savinkov the opportunity to make an attempt on Van Langendonck. Instead, he had a minor slide off the track at Turn 13, and Van Langendonck took off once again to win by 7.980s over the US Racing driver, with third-placed Ludovico Busso 17.656s behind.

Report by Grayson Wallace

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying 1	Ethan Lennon, 2:05.468	Dries Van Langendonck, +0.080s	Ary Bansal, +0.607s
Qualifying 2	Dries Van Langendonck, 2:05.389	Oleksandr Savinkov, +0.844s	Ethan Lennon, +0.869s
Race 1 (11 laps)	Ary Bansal, 32:27.584	Thomas Bearman, +1.202s	Teo Borenstein, +1.877s
Race 2 (15 laps)	Dries Van Langendonck, 33:03.718	Alfie Slater, +8.138s	Ethan Lennon, +10.584s
Race 3 (14 laps)	Dries Van Langendonck, 31:58.707	Oleksandr Savinkov, +7.980s	Ludovico Busso, +17.656s

Standings	Drivers	Teams	Rookies
P1	Dries Van Langendonck, 108	Rodin Motorsport, 163	Dries Van Langendonck, 112
P2	Ary Bansal, 66	US Racing, 151	Rocco Coronel, 86
P3	Oleksandr Savinkov, 59	Van Amersfoort Racing, 106	Ethan Lennon, 63
P4	Rocco Coronel, 52	Jenzer Motorsport, 37	Samuel Ifrid, 57
P5	Thomas Bearman, 45	Campos Racing, 30	Alfie Slater, 55
P6	Ethan Lennon, 45	AKM Motorsport, 18	Levi Arn, 45
P7	Alfie Slater, 40	Cram Motorsport, 16	Roman Kamyab, 40
P8	Aleksander Ruta, 34	Mathilda Racing, 15	Felipe Reijs, 29
P9	Levi Arn, 21	Renauer Motorsport, 4	Vittorio Orsini, 25
P10	Ludovico Busso, 21	AS Motorsport, 2	Max Kammerlander, 25

Read the previous round’s report here.

Header photo credit: Gedlich Racing