Once a rising star in Formula 4 and an F3 race winner, Nikita Bedrin took a step back in 2025 to FR Europe for a campaign that yielded just two visits to the podium. As he moves over to GB3 for 2026, the DS Penske development driver told Feeder Series about how he’s hoping to rejuvenate his career and push himself towards a full-time seat in Formula E.

By George Sanderson

A new year usually means a fresh start, particularly in the world of junior motorsport.

It’s not always good news. Sometimes, it means you’ve had to leave a dream behind. But for Nikita Bedrin, racing in the GB3 Championship in 2026 may prove to be the blank slate he needs to bring his Formula E dreams to life.

This time a year ago, the Russian-born, Italian-licenced driver was enjoying some of his strongest performances ever. In six races in FR Middle East over the winter with Saintéloc Racing, Bedrin took a win and three further podiums to rocket to 11th in the standings. Then a few weeks later, Bedrin was called upon to fill a vacant seat at AIX Racing for the 2025 F3 season opener on short notice.

The team opted to put their faith in a familiar face as F3 tackled its first new car in six years, and Bedrin delivered, qualifying fourth before finishing sixth in the sprint race and fourth in the feature. Those results meant that despite arriving in Melbourne without any testing, he left fourth in the F3 drivers’ standings – just two points behind second-placed Théophile Naël – and with momentum entering his full-season FR Europe campaign.

It was the third year that Bedrin featured in both F3 and FR Europe in what has been a non-traditional career trajectory forged by cobbling together whatever opportunities his limited budget afforded him.

Having impressed in his two years of F4-level racing in 2021 and 2022, Bedrin was handed a seat with lower-budget team Jenzer Motorsport for the 2023 F3 season as part of a partnership with PHM Racing, who fielded him in 2022. After getting off to a slow start, he took two pieces of silverware in consecutive weeks with third-place finishes in the Hungary sprint and Belgium feature races. He ended the year by entering FR Europe’s final two rounds and scored three top-10 finishes, including a podium in the first race at Hockenheim.

For 2024, Bedrin had another shot at F3, this time with the full PHM Racing squad, who were then rebranded as AIX Racing in May. Bedrin led the team through a year of struggle and picked up five points finishes, including a surprise victory in the Hungary sprint – the same race in which he picked up his first F3 podium the year before.

That year, Bedrin raced simultaneously in FR Europe for MP Motorsport, a rival of AIX’s in F3, in seven race weekends. He finished inside the points in seven of 14 races, with best finishes of sixth in Hockenheim and Monza. He finished ahead of both of his full-time teammates, Valerio Rinicella and Nikhil Bohra, despite missing three rounds of the season.

By the time 2025 rolled around, Bedrin’s F3 prospects had dried up. For the first time, he could compete in a full FR Europe season, doing so with the Saintéloc team with whom he excelled in the winter. The team did not find the same level of success in Europe, however. Bedrin, took 10 points finishes, highlighted by podiums in Imola and Spielberg, but he was also responsible for all 72 of their points as the team’s only full-time driver.

For 2026, FR Europe is entering a new era, adopting Tatuus’ second-generation Tatuus T-326 car machinery and ending the Alpine partnership that gave rise to the FRECA moniker. Bedrin, however, won’t be racing it. Instead, he heads to GB3 to race the Tatuus MSV GB3-025, which shares a chassis with the new-for-2026 FR package but uses a different aero kit.

“I haven’t [driven] the new FREC car, but from the previous one to GB3, I would say GB3 is a much better car,” he told Feeder Series. “FRECA is probably one of my least favourite cars I’ve driven. [In the] GB3, actually, you can feel the downforce much better, so I prefer that one.”

While Bedrin will thus compete at the FR level for a fourth consecutive year, his ambitions this time around are loftier. The 20-year-old has signed with VRD Racing in GB3, who secured two victories and two further podiums in 2025. ‘The main goal’, Bedrin says, is to win the championship.

“I did a test with the team that they asked me to drive. From my sponsors’ side, they called me and they told me to drive. I was really quick, so they gave a very good contract, and then I ended up signing it,” he said. “We haven’t done much testing and I don’t know how the pace will be with all other teams, but so far, it’s been quite positive.”

Alongside his GB3 campaign, Bedrin will continue in his role as development driver for fellow American team DS Penske in Formula E.

Having been announced for the role in June 2025, Bedrin has competed in rookie practice sessions for the team on two occasions. His first outing came at the Berlin rookie test, where he completed 99 laps and posted a lap time good enough for 14th out of the 22 runners. Bedrin was 0.748 seconds off the pace set by F2 driver Gabriele Minì and just 0.108s away from former F1 driver Daniil Kvyat in the other DS Penske.

Bedrin most recently took part in the 40-minute Miami E-Prix rookie practice. As the lone driver representing DS Penske, Bedrin finished fifth out of the 11 drivers, 0.435s away from the pace of former F2 driver Zak O’Sullivan.

An hour later, when Feeder Series speaks to him on pit lane, Bedrin explains that Formula E is ‘a good direction to aim for the future’ for him. The ‘ridiculous’ finances required to climb the motorsport ladder, he says, have quashed his dreams of a career in F1.

“There are a lot of things that are out of my control which don’t let me have an open path to Formula 1 right now, so we need to be a bit more open with where I could end up,” he said. “Unless you have massive sponsors backing you up, I don’t think you can get anywhere far right now. Whoever pays more gets the best equipment as well. It’s getting very political right now.”

Bedrin is part of a motorsport family, but not in the traditional way. His sister is married to Felice Tiene, who capped off a decorated karting career in the 2000s and 2010s with victory in the OK class of the 2017 FIA Karting World Championship. Tiene never stepped up to single-seaters, but together, he and Bedrin help prepare the next generation – including Bedrin’s six-year-old nephew Alessandro – to shine.

“When I have free time, I’m able to help Felice with coaching,” Bedrin said. “Every time I’m free from the racetrack, I probably am with him.”

It’s an evolution of a role he’s played in the last two years in his F3 and FR campaigns. Those, in turn, have shaped Bedrin’s involvement with DS Penske, where his work helps support race drivers Maximilian Günther and Taylor Barnard, his longtime PHM and Jenzer teammate.

“What helps me here more is my years in being the leader of the team, developing the cars, which helps me a lot with the sim work that we do, with the feedback that I give,” he told Feeder Series.

Bedrin has settled in well with DS Penske and says he ‘like[s] the atmosphere’ of Formula E. Whilst many drivers in his position and with his connections may be looking at the American open-wheel ladder, on which VRD maintains a presence, or outside single-seaters entirely, he believes a route into the all-electric championship is best for him.

“I think the obvious roads are LMP or GTs, but we haven’t been focusing on that yet,” Bedrin said. “We tried looking at [racing in the United States], but at the moment it’s not in our plans. It would be good of course, but with the Formula E going on, [that is] still the main goal.”

Over the years, rumours have circulated about a single-seater feeder series for the all-electric series as a route into the championship for younger drivers. If one is created, it could offer another pathway of interest to Bedrin if a full-time seat does not immediately materialise.

“I heard that one or two years ago, but I haven’t heard anything recently,” he said. “It would be good to have, of course. It also will grow Formula E and then you’ll have a junior series with it, which will also make it more entertaining and more things to watch, so I think it’s quite cool.”

Interview by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Formula Regional European Championship