Leonardo
Fornaroli

Leonardo Fornaroli was born in Piacenza on 3 December 2004. He started karting in Italy at around the age of ten and won the Mini Academy class of the Championkart series in 2016. In 2019 he finished third in the Andrea Margutti Trophy. In 2020 and 2021 he raced for Iron Lynx in Italian Formula 4, took his first win in the category at Misano in 2021 and ended that season fifth overall. In 2022 he finished eighth in Formula Regional Europe with Trident, the best-placed rookie in the series.

He spent two years with Trident in FIA Formula 3. In 2023 he took his first pole position at Silverstone and ranked eleventh with three podiums and 69 points. In 2024 he arrived at the Monza finale as championship leader. On the final lap he passed Christian Mansell for third place, and his rival Gabriele Minì was later disqualified. Fornaroli became champion without winning a race all season, the first title winner in F3 or its predecessor GP3 to do so, and he did not retire from a single race. At the Abu Dhabi round in 2024 he made his Formula 2 debut with Rodin Motorsport, standing in for Zane Maloney.

In 2025 he contested his first full Formula 2 season with Invicta Racing and clinched the title in Qatar with one round remaining. He won four races, stood on the podium nine times and took three poles. This made him the eighth driver in the history of GP2 and Formula 2 to win the title as a rookie, and Invicta won the teams' championship. He also received the Anthoine Hubert Award as top rookie. McLaren brought him into its driver development programme and named him reserve driver for 2026. He tested the McLaren MCL60 and the Haas VF-25 at Jerez, and drove in free practice sessions at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, where he was fifth in practice, and the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Source: Wikipedia, “Leonardo Fornaroli”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.