For Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy prospect Tuukka Taponen, a winter move to MP Motorsport for his second season in Formula 3 was intended to put him in the fight at the front. Instead, the Finn’s 2026 campaign has become an exercise in patience, problem-solving and resilience as he and his team work to unlock the car’s latent race pace. At Spielberg, Feeder Series sat down with Taponen to discuss the challenges behind his difficult start to the year, the support of Ferrari, and what comes next.

By August Bamford

Tuukka Taponen’s decision to switch from ART Grand Prix to MP Motorsport ahead of this season was a calculated move. In his first full-time season in F3 with ART, the Ferrari junior laid a strong foundation by claiming three podium finishes, headlined by his first feature race podium in Budapest, and scoring 67 points. Armed with a strong baseline, the Finnish youngster sought an environment in which he would be able to extract race-winning performance regularly.

That search led him to MP Motorsport. The Dutch outfit had proven its frontrunning credentials the previous year, capturing third in the 2025 teams’ championship by leveraging a well-rounded driver line-up to routinely haul in points. MP successfully placed two of its three drivers inside the overall top 10 as Tim Tramnitz led the charge, securing their solitary victory of the season at the Imola sprint race, while Alessandro Giusti also finished inside the championship’s top 10.

Backed by his management and the guiding figures at Maranello, Taponen’s move to MP was a bet that he could replicate the formula that elevated Tramnitz and Giusti and build upon that success.

“Everyone around me saw the potential last year from MP,” Taponen told Feeder Series on Saturday before Austria’s sprint race. “Especially in the races, and even qualifying, that they could put the car in the top five or top three basically every time and especially in the races that they could fight for the wins with their pace. That was one of those reasons that made us to change the team.”

However, the opening half of the 2026 campaign has laid bare a harsh contrast between pre-season expectations and reality. Following a difficult round in Silverstone where he went without points for the third time this season, Taponen sits 16th in the standings on 18 points. While the team’s single-lap qualifying speed remains potent – headlined by the showing in Spielberg, where all three MP cars were provisionally in the top eight and Taponen himself was on the second row of the grid for the feature race – their weekends have been derailed by a creeping race deficit that seems to compound on itself.

“The more we do laps, the further we go, the more our issues come,” Taponen explained. “Qualifying [in Spielberg] was a step forward from Barcelona. As a team, we put three cars in the top eight. Unfortunately one of us got our lap time deleted due to the track limits, but it was definitely a step forward. Our issue doesn’t come in qualifying, [but] the more laps we do, the more the issues come.

“We have to do something bigger,” he continued. “It’s not adjusting a little. We need to try something bigger to improve that.”

Crucially, Taponen isn’t fighting this battle alone. Between Giusti’s experience with MP last year, Mattia Colnaghi’s instinctive talent and Taponen’s own reference points from ART, the team has a wealth of data. They know what to fix; the challenge lies in how.

“We’ve had a few tests to solve a few problems, and in the tests the issue has not become so big,” Taponen reflected on the in-season test that took place in Spielberg in late May. “The issues are coming during the race when it’s hotter. We have been discussing with the engineers, and all three drivers are giving the same feedback – it’s just not me.

“Sandro Giusti was here last year, and Tramnitz went from P17 to P3 [on the road] in the feature race, so he knows how it felt last year. I have changed my team – I know how it felt with the other team. We have good references, good things to compare. It’s just how we can solve the issue, that’s more the thing. We know what we have to improve, but how is another thing.”

Taponen has rarely found himself on the back foot this early in a season. Before coming ninth in F3 last year, he had never finished outside the top five in a full-season campaign in any single-seater championship. Fortunately, the Finnish driver has a formidable safety net in his corner in the form of the Ferrari Driver Academy.

Taponen initially joined the Ferrari family by winning the third edition of the FDA Scouting World Finals in November 2022 after falling short in 2021. Since that pivotal moment, Taponen has had access to and support from the likes of academy head Marc Gené, a former Ferrari test driver, and senior engineer Riccardo Adami, who has engineered Sebastian Vettel, Carlos Sainz Jr and Lewis Hamilton in the past decade. The Finn says Ferrari have taken a holistic approach to Taponen’s early-season struggles rather than applying pressure based on results.

“Ferrari is supporting me well,” Taponen said. “They understand the situation I’m in. They are aware of everything, what’s going on with the team. They are supporting me by offering me advice on ways I can improve. They prepare me for every race, to anticipate things, and what to expect.”

Taponen’s capacity to handle this stressful phase of his career might also stem from an unconventional and demanding off-season. While many of his rivals spent the winter focused exclusively on physical training and simulator work, the Ferrari junior was balancing preparations for his sophomore F3 campaign with mandatory military service back home in Finland, while also graduating with a vocational qualification in vehicle technology.

Taponen completed his military service at the Finnish Defence Forces Sports School (Urheilukoulu) on the island of Santahamina in Helsinki. The school, designed to accommodate Finland’s elite athletes, allowed him to tailor his service around simulator sessions and travel commitments. Last year, the programme lasted five and a half months, overlapping with the end of post-season testing and running until March. Taponen faced a similar schedule this year.

Although it limited the amount of time he could spend in person with his new team, the experience ultimately forced Taponen to mature beyond the familiar and protective confines of the paddock.

“It went quite well, to be honest,” Taponen answered. “I feel like I grew up as a person after that. It’s not so easy in those moments when you’re in the forest, it’s minus 10 degrees. It’s in Finland so it’s cold no matter where you go. Maybe during those situations when I was there it was not so much fun, but afterwards I felt like it was a helpful experience. For F3, everything went well in preparation this year. When I had to go to the sim, we managed to fit it into the schedule.”

As F3 continues on to Spa-Francorchamps for round six of nine, attention will inevitably turn to his future – whether he stays in F3 for a third campaign, steps up to F2 or pursues another path entirely. Taponen, however, is refusing to look too far ahead. He acknowledges that his results have fallen short of his own expectations and that those performances will shape the conversations around his next move.

“We have to start to talk with the team, asking Ferrari also what they think,” Taponen admitted. “Result-wise, it’s just been very difficult these two years. I haven’t been able to put those results that I’d like to and we have various reasons for that. Ferrari is aware of everything, and we do need to discuss about everything next year.”

“There are no specific goals,” he continued. “They want me to do the maximum and the best I can do every time I am on the track. That’s important for them and that’s my job to try and maximise. If I can’t win, then that’s okay. If I can’t even do top 10 then they want to see me fighting for P13. That’s the best I can do.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency