Up Next
Two newly-signed Red Bull Formula 1 juniors will make their car racing debuts in the Ginetta Junior Winter Series this weekend, as Red Bull continues its efforts to revive the fortunes of its driver academy.
The Ginetta Junior Series, in which a field of 14-16-year-olds race Ginetta G40 Juniors, is most famous for giving McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris his start in car racing in 2014.
Other famous alumni include 2025 IndyCar driver Louis Foster, Indy NXT race winner Jamie Chadwick and Pau Grand Prix winner Billy Monger.
Now 14-year-olds Rocco Coronel (below) and Scott Lindblom will start their car racing careers in Red Bull-branded Ginettas this weekend in the Ginetta Junior Winter Series - a standalone event with a qualifying session and three races during Silverstone’s Walter Hayes Trophy weekend.
They will then tackle their first full-time car racing campaign in the Ginetta Junior Championship in 2025, heading to seven rounds at English circuits before a yet-to-be-confirmed overseas event.
The duo will do so with the R Racing outfit that has won each of the last four drivers’ championships.
The Silverstone winter series event is often a good indicator of form, with seven winter series champions going onto win the main series title the following year.
Recent karting graduates Coronel and Lindblom (above) already have some experience of the cars, having reached the final stage of a recent Ginetta scholarship contest at Blyton Park.
Coronel - son of touring car drivers Tom Coronel and Paulien Zwart - and Lindblom joined Red Bull’s junior programme after impressing during a shootout for a group of drivers aged 13-16.
They tested GP3 and Formula 4 cars at Jerez with technical support provided by Campos - which runs Red Bull juniors in Formula 2, Formula 3 and F4.
That shootout was part of a push from Red Bull to improve its junior programme, having lost its edge in recent years as rivals have ramped up their own young driver academies.
That's all with the long-term goal of ensuring it has enough credible future Red Bull Racing drivers, having had to look outside its own driver pool several times in recent years.
Starting in Ginettas allows young drivers to begin their car racing careers before being old enough to race in an FIA-certified Formula 4 championship, which has a minimum age of 15.
Lindblom called racing in Ginettas “good preparation for single-seaters in 2026”, while Coronel said “I don’t have any real expectations, I primarily want to learn as much as possible and gain experience”.
Ginetta will introduce a series of changes for 2025, including the introduction of the Ginetta G40 Junior Evo, an upgraded version of the current car.
The Silverstone winter series weekend will be streamed live on the BRSCC YouTube channel as part of the Walter Hayes Trophy coverage, as well as GinettaTV’s YouTube channel.
Pictures courtesy of Jakob Ebrey Photography
