Evan Giltaire has revealed he is eyeing up a move to Super Formula  in 2027 with his B-Max Racing team owner publicly underlining that he would like to field Giltaire in an additional car next season. Feeder Series spoke to the Frenchman about his Super Formula test and what might await him – in Japan or elsewhere – in 2027.

By Finjo Muschlien

B-Max Racing team owner Ryuji Kumita, also known under his pseudonym “Dragon”, publicly revealed to Motorsport.com that he would like to field Giltaire in a second car in Super Formula alongside Yuto Nomura in 2027. This statement came shortly after Giltaire placed fifth of 24 drivers in the Super Formula in-season test’s morning session on 1 July at Fuji.

It is a rarity that team owners reveal their plans publicly eight months before the season starts, and especially when said driver faced severe struggles with budget in past seasons. 

Speaking to Feeder Series, Giltaire has likewise shown an interest in driving in Super Formula in 2027. 

“Maybe if I win the championship, for sure it will help to go to the Super Formula,” the Frenchman said. “I would love to do it, of course, because it’s such a good car and I’m starting to [get on] well with the Japanese team.”

“If it’s up to me only, I would love to do that. But it’s not only up to me,” he added. “As you can imagine, there is a lot of budget [required]. From who, I don’t know – if it comes from me and my personal sponsors, if it comes from the ART financial part, if it comes from Honda, from B-Max. I think there is an opportunity for sure and they are thinking about it. But I also need […] to finish and to prove the end of the season.

And failing to prove himself midway through the 2025 Formula Regional European Championship season meant he would only finish fifth in the drivers’ championship with one win he took in the opening round. This was a surprise given that he had taken the title in the shorter FR Middle East winter series with ART Grand Prix earlier in the year, notching three wins and five further podiums.

With his budget limited and his results unspectacular, he missed out on a potential F3 seat with ART for 2026. Instead, he switched to Super Formula Lights with B-Max Racing, who have fielded the series’ champion every year from 2023. 

Now, rather than aiming for the European ladder up through F3 and F2, Super Formula was in sight. Yet he still had to prove himself in its feeder series – and he did. 

In the opening round at Fuji, he claimed a dominant maiden win in the second race and finished third in the other two races. In the second round at Autopolis, he extended his win count to three and inherited the championship lead at the time. 

Today, with four of six rounds completed, he sits third in the drivers’ championship on 63 points, 32 more than his Honda-supported team mate Kotaro Shimbara has. 

“Before the test of Super Formula, we never talked about making a season in Super Formula. First of all, I think they wanted to see what I can show in this car. But we never talked about anything together with Dragon. And I only saw the [Motorsport.com] article yesterday sent by a friend, but I didn’t know that he talked about a second car and maybe making a Super Formula season. So if it’s really true – and I think the media is quite strong, so I think it’s true – it’s a good thing to hear for me for sure.”

Giltaire’s interest in racing in Super Formula was certainly boosted by the fact that he was selected by his B-Max team to take part in the Super Formula in-season test, which the team used to get external feedback as they are only fielding one car this season. Giltaire was the only non-full-time driver to take part in the test, which he said he ‘really enjoyed’. 

“I’m really looking forward to try again, because as a driver, when you test some good things like this – and it’s also everything about life, when you try higher categories or higher level about things – you don’t want to go back to the lower categories. It’s in every sport, I think the same, but even more in motorsports, when you try things like this, the car is just perfect,” he said.

“And I think it’s the fastest car ever under F1 nowadays, because nowadays hypercars are not that fast compared to LMP1 back in the day. Even the F2 is slower. This car is really brutal and I really enjoyed the opportunity.”

Giltaire added that he ‘had a lot of expectations before going into the car’ and ‘knew that the power was really high’, but he still believes ‘nobody can understand the fact that the car is really, really fast.”

Giltaire’s test was a success, but how realistic is it that he actually races in Super Formula next season?

The Frenchman has decent support from his current team B-Max Racing as well as his former team ART Grand Prix, who also support his Super Formula Lights season financially. Currently third in the drivers’ standings, Giltaire aims ‘to do the maximum, to bring the maximum points and to try to win the championship’. He added that he doesn’t ‘know if it’s mandatory or not to win the championship to go to Super Formula,’ although it would certainly help him. 

In the history of Super Formula Lights, there has never been a drivers’ champion hailing from outside of Japan. With Japanese dual nationals excluded, no foreigner has stepped up to Super Formula via Super Formula Lights since 2021, not even then–Toyota juniors Esteban Masson in 2025 or Enzo Trulli in 2023. 

Conversely, the last to jump from an F3-level series in Japan to a full-time campaign in Super Formula was 2019 Japanese F3 champion Sacha Fenestraz, while the last foreign driver to move from Japanese F3 to F2 or GP2 was Marcus Ericsson in 2010. Giltaire is hoping to end one of those hiatuses – and Super Formula isn’t the only option he is eyeing up.

“The comeback in Europe could be an option also,” the 19-year-old said. “We are thinking about it. I would like to go directly to F2 if I have another opportunity in Europe, because I think F3 is still too long. And even if I’m winning F3, I will still have to go to F2.

“But for now, the target looks more to be working again with Japan for the budget-wise and also because they really like me and I also really like the challenge to be in Super Formula or Super Formula Lights. […] I would like also to tell you what I’m going to do in ’27, but for now, I really don’t know yet. It’s a bit too early now, but the decision will be taken in the last two rounds of Super Formula Lights, and hopefully it will be the best one for me.”

Giltaire has also expressed an interest in endurance racing, including the World Endurance Championship’s hyperclass category and Super GT’s GT500 class, although he underlined his wish to focus on single-seaters at the moment. 

“I’m also a driver that raced in a lot of categories and I think it’s pretty much a force for me to be able to jump in every car I touch and to be able to adapt as quickly as possible. And I really appreciate the way endurance is going.

“First of all, in Europe, the World Endurance Championship is getting really crazy with all the constructors and it looks really good as a driver to see that. But also, for sure, the Super GT looks really amazing. First of all, Super GT300, but of course, Super GT500 looks really impressive. It’s a completely different approach compared to the Japanese drivers, because in Japan, they are all supported by Honda or by Toyota.

“And for me, for sure, I have some links and relations with Honda, but my biggest programme is with B-Max and B-Max is not racing in Super GT300 or 500. So I don’t know if Honda will push or not if I’m making a Super Formula season next year. Maybe I will have a double programme and I would love to do that because as a driver, making a double programme in the GT cars and single-seaters is something really special. So I would love to do that, but for now, we are not talking at all about endurance or GT, and we are mainly focusing on single-seaters and my racing career, first of all, before going to talk about GT for now.”

Having missed out on F3 in 2026 because of his limited budget last year, Giltaire today sees his move to Japan as a success, especially now that he is fighting for a Super Formula drive next year. It has served an important function for his morale too as a way to bounce back from the struggles he and his team faced in the FRegional European Championship last year.

“In terms of financial part and also racing part – because we have been struggling in FRECA after [winning] Formula Regional Middle East, with the team and with everything, it’s a global part – considering everything, I would say it’s a really good success, especially with the Super Formula test now and what I’ve shown [there].

“But on the other side, I would say that considering I’m in the same generation of [Kimi] Antonelli, [Oliver] Bearman – I raced against Antonelli and I sometimes beat him – other drivers also like [Rafael] Camara, [Nikola] Tsolov, all those guys … it’s a bit of disappointment to not be with them and to not fight in F2 or F1 already. But still, coming from what I’ve come, I think it’s still a success, and I’ve also been in some points to still reach some good categories, Super Formula Lights and FRECA, and I have a big chance to have such a good team, for example, ART and B-Max behind me and also my personal sponsor that I have here from the beginning of karting. So still, I would say more success than disappointment.”

Header photo credit: Super Formula