Alexandre Munoz has attracted significant attention following his title-winning campaign in French Formula 4 last year. The 16-year-old explains how the title battle unfolded and what comes next after some promising tests with ART Grand Prix in FRegional machinery.

By Perceval Wolff-Taffus

The last time Alexandre Munoz sat down for an interview with Feeder Series, he was in the paddock at Dijon-Prenois, where he had just come off his fourth win from four standard-grid races in the 2025 French F4 season.

There were ups and downs in the rounds that followed. His points lead was slashed at Spa following contact with his main title contender Jules Roussel. But a bit more than four months later, Munoz took the title with one race to spare at the Le Mans Bugatti circuit. A day after clinching the championship, he won his final French F4 race to eke out a dominant 61-point margin over his nearest rivals, Arthur Dorison and Roussel.

“I had at least one podium every weekend, but I hadn’t won since Dijon. It was really important to win at Le Mans. I started with a win in Nogaro and I finished with a win,” Munoz told me on Twitch in January.

Munoz was tipped as a title favourite pre-season, a perception he solidified with his victory in the opening race and strengthened with each win that followed. So clear was his advantage early on, however, that the battle quickly became him versus everyone else.

“When you arrive at the third or fourth round and you have won the majority of the races, you become the number one target,” he said.

“In qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps, there was not one driver who didn’t want my tow, and that was challenging. You had to manage it well. I did my lap without any tow, so maybe I lost pole because of that. In the second sector, with more turns, I was the fastest by five tenths, but I lost a tenth on the straights. There were moments like that during the season.” 

“The field was very tight this year, and even the smallest differences or losses of time could result in big changes in the standings,” he continued. “We had to be perfect every time to get the win, and I have not been several times. There were elements out of my control, elements in my control.”

Coming into the season finale, where 70 points were on offer, Munoz had a 27-point lead on Roussel, with Dorison a further 35 points behind.

“I arrived in Le Mans, and I was pretty calm. I knew what I had to do to become champion,” the driver from Occitania said. “The atmosphere was weird in Le Mans. There were Jules’ clans, my clans. There were also clans for Arthur, who could have still won the title too because he was third in the championship fight. It was really tense – you could feel it. But I think I managed it well.”

Munoz set the fastest lap in qualifying on Friday, but despite having a clean lap, he lost pole position because of too many track limits infringements on other laps he had set.

“I should have had pole if I hadn’t done all these track limits infringements before,” he said. “The rhythm was there, and it showed that I felt at ease. After the qualifying, the races – it was a war. Honestly, the three races in Le Mans were the ones with the most battles of the year. It was really impressive.”

A season finale usually comes with unprecedented excitement, especially with three drivers mathematically eligible for the crown. But for those outside of Le Mans, there was silence. The round was not broadcast online, leaving fans, journalists, friends and even Munoz himself disappointed.

“We are in a feeder series. We have to show ourselves, to show that we are here and we are fast. Le Mans was a perfect showcase of this. There were battles everywhere. I saw on the screen that there were three-way battles for 30 minutes. It’s really sad it was not broadcast. My partners and my family were here to watch me, to feel the emotions. They fully lived the moment. But the others, those who couldn’t come, they did not have any live pictures, so they were a bit frustrated,” Munoz said.

“At the end of the day, I got the title. It was liberating for me because to be honest, if there was no title, my time in single-seaters would have stopped. And to win the final race the day after was the icing on the cake.”

Munoz was not predestined to rise through the ranks of the single-seater ladder. He happened upon the sport somewhat by accident, but as he explains, things quickly blossomed from there.

“My father was not at all in the world of motorsport. I discovered karting because my father did a rental karting endurance race with his company. I said I liked it and I wanted to test it, and from the first laps, it went very well. I started in a karting school and that went very well too, and they quickly told us that I should go and compete in races,” he recalled.

“I started in 2021 in my regional series. I did two years in the Cadet category. But it was a small team, and my dad, who didn’t have much experience in racing, told me, ‘Honestly, I don’t know how to help you progress further, but I think there are people who can answer this question.’

“Karting is a very complicated world, with teams, budget. It’s quite important if you want to compete in France or internationally. So he said, ‘Why not contact the FFSA Academy?’ I was in contact with Amaury Richard, who was in charge of the FFSA Academy championships at that moment. I did my first tests at Le Mans in junior karting, and that’s where everything started with the French federation.

“I did the FFSA junior karting championship in 2023. I had very little experience. I used to watch a lot of races at that time. So when I joined, I was seeing all around me other drivers from the championship, from races I had watched on television, telling myself, ‘Oh, I know him, I know him too, and him!’ I found it very strange to be among drivers like them. I thought I would be far in the standings, but I fought for the podium right from the start.

“[FFSA national technical director] Christophe Lollier was impressed by my pace, so to speak, and by my results as well. We started to hold discussions, and he said that I had potential but that I had to work. So I continued to work.

“He brought me into F4 in 2024. It was not just practice. There were races so we had to take things seriously, but it was to gain experience for 2025. The goal was to have a big 2025, and that’s what happened with becoming French champion. Without the FFSA, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Thanks to them, I evolved a lot. I went from being a boy with very little experience to a French F4 champion.”

Having finished 17th in his rookie season in French F4, the French driver showed steady progression during 2024 that culminated in a maiden win in the reverse-grid race at Paul Ricard. But it was also a challenging season. He was the youngest driver of the field, even missing the season opener because he was not yet 15 years old, the series’ minimum age.

“After my year in junior karting, we thought Christophe would tell us to do another year in FFSA junior,” he said. “Eventually he told my dad that I would be put in F4. We didn’t envision that. I know there are lots of young drivers testing single-seaters at 13, 14 years old, but when they put me at 14 years old in a car that goes at 240 kilometres per hour, I was thinking it might be too early. But I was living my dream. 

“It was a learning year, so the results in the first part of the year weren’t for showing off. Christophe told me not to focus on the results but to focus on myself, on what I had to do, what I had to work on. And the evolution came. I reached a very good level, we could say, at the end of 2024 and the start of 2025. Of course, there were challenging moments during the year when you wonder what’s missing and how you can be closer to the guys in front. But with work, step by step, we went in the right direction.”

From 17th place in 2024, Munoz rose to the top spot in the French F4 standings the next year. What were the biggest keys to his progression?

“When I started in 2024, I had two days of testing. I was not ready physically,” he said. “My first qualifying session was the first time I used fresh tyres, but little by little, I began to improve. I knew that in my first year, qualifying would be the most difficult to master because there was a lot of traffic. Sometimes it was outside of my control, but sometimes it was me who managed it poorly. […]

“The pace was there at the end of the season on worn tyres, but I still lacked a bit of performance on fresh tyres. So at Pôle France [within the FFSA Academy headquarters], I worked a lot on the simulator with qualifying simulations. I worked mentally, I worked physically, and that’s why at the pre-season tests at Nogaro, I was fully prepared even though it had been five months since I last drove an F4 car. I was not exhausted after the tests as I was last year. I was truly ready in just about every aspect.”

After his French F4 success, Munoz had his first taste of the next category on the ladder, with four testing days in first-generation FR machinery with ART Grand Prix.

“There are many things to learn, especially coming from French F4. We don’t work with teams, so that’s the first time I have worked with a team. Above all, we focused on working on the setup in the first days. With the car, you must work on the driving, but the setup is much more advanced than in F4 seeing as there are many more things to look after,” he said. “It’s better on the driver’s side because we put our heads together more with the engineers. I can’t wait to do more of that this year and in the years to come.”

In testing in the Tatuus T-318, which will be replaced by the new T-326 this season in FR Europe, Munoz impressed In his four days of testing in Spa-Francorchamps and Paul Ricard, he was consistently the fastest driver of his team in the sessions he did, beating teammates such as Gabriel Gomez, Kabir Anurag, Enea Frey and Matteo Giaccardi.

“Teams always have questions about how a driver will adapt, and I showed I could adapt quickly to the car,” he said. “The pace compared to my teammates was good, as it was compared to Prema. At Spa, on a seven-kilometre track, I was one tenth off the pace on new tyres, which was quite encouraging considering my experience.

“The team has had a difficult year. They got the title in FR Middle East at the start of the year, but in Europe, it was more difficult. We were motivated to catch the Premas in testing, but we didn’t manage to do so with fresh tyres. But for sure, it helped for the negotiations. It still helps for the negotiations because they’re not over, and now it’s time to test the new car.”

Anurag and Giaccardi are already signed for ART’s FR Europe line-up, but Munoz, who possesses a smaller personal budget, has not yet been announced alongside them. So when he went to the FFSA’s year-end awards ceremony, Munoz received a pleasant surprise. The scholarship for the champion was increased from €100,000 to €250,000 starting from 2025 onwards, a crucial amount that could help him to secure the ART seat.

“I found out on stage! We weren’t expecting it at all. We knew the FFSA might make a little gesture, but I didn’t know they were giving €250,000,” Munoz related. “And to have received the cheque from Jean Alesi was even more significant.”

The scholarship has not, however, helped Munoz race in FR Middle East during the winter. The series is the first one to race with the Tatuus T-326, which means the drivers taking part in the series could have a substantial advantage on Munoz coming into FR Europe afterwards.

“I would have loved to do those additional races, but we prefer to focus on Europe. Budgets are very tight – for me all the more so – and are just massive compared to French F4’s,” he said. “We prefer to focus on having a good European season with full preparation, with all the tyres at our disposal, to do the tests alongside too.”

The relevance of FR Middle East to his European campaign was another factor in Munoz’s decision to skip the winter series.

“We cannot trust too much what happens in the Middle East one weekend, nor can we trust a weekend in Europe, because last year, we saw there could be a difference of performances between Middle East and Europe, and even from a meeting to another, one team can find a great setup relative to others,” he said. 

“In the Middle East, it’s not in the same conditions. Europe is like 30 degrees colder, so it’s [very different] for the tyres.

“It’s true that it’s easier to come to Europe when you have already done qualifying sessions, races, et cetera. But we will have six days of pre-season tests before the first FREC race. I think I have the capacity to adapt quickly. In six days, we can have a lot of mileage, we can test a lot of different things.

“We are not afraid of not doing the Middle East and arriving in Europe with less racing time compared to others. I know I can adapt well. And in addition, Taito [Kato] is racing with ART in the Middle East, and he can also help develop the car. I’m not worried.”

In the hands of soon-to-be F3 driver Kato, ART have already won their first race in the Tatuus T-326, though a Middle Eastern title bid like the one Evan Giltaire staged in 2025 is now out of the question. For Munoz, the uncertainty makes setting a specific goal – such as challenging for the FR Europe title – difficult. Instead, he simply wants to do his best.

“Everything is new with the new cars, so I don’t know how I will adapt to the car and how it will be compared to other teams,” he added. “In feeder series racing, the first target is to beat your teammates. And after, you must work with the team to get the best results.”

“The goal is to perform right from the start. In my first year in F4,” Munoz added, “I was not ready, but now I am. The goal is to be present immediately, to show myself to junior teams and impress [them], to work hard – no questions asked – and to perform.”

Header photo credit: Edern Frouin