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TEAM GUIDE: ART Grand Prix trio looking to turn around their team’s fortunes in 2025
Finishing bottom of the Teams’ Standings in 2024, ART Grand Prix will be far from content with how last year’s campaign panned out.
Ending up 279 points adrift of Champions PREMA Racing is a telling statistic but, at times, the gap between their drivers’ performance was not as big as their final points tally suggests.
Retaining Williams’ Lia Block and PUMA driver Aurelia Nobels alongside recruiting Haas’ Courtney Crone, the French team are setting themselves up well with a talented trio who all have room to grow. So, can they bring ART back to winning ways in F1 ACADEMY this season?
COURTNEY CRONE
The first of four Wild Card drivers to graduate to a full-time seat on the 2025 grid, Courtney Crone’s acclimatisation to the series began back in Miami.
Stepping back into single-seaters after a few years away, the American didn’t seem to need much time to settle back in. Whilst there was still some one-lap pace to unlock, Crone narrowly missed out on points with a P11 finish in Race 2.
Fortunately for her, they shouldn’t elude her for long this season. Her ability to manage the challenges the Miami International Autodrome posed straightaway, without testing there beforehand, should please ART and show that she won’t be phased by the likes of Montreal, Singapore and Las Vegas later in the year.
AURELIA NOBELS
Aurelia Nobels scored 29 points and finished 12th in the Drivers’ Standings, but on reflection, that position doesn’t tell the full story of Nobels’ potential.
The youngest driver in the 2024 field, the PUMA driver collected six points-scoring finishes and had good pace across a variety of circuits. Yet, Nobels’ fluctuations in form left her unable to build the same consistency that propelled several of her fellow rookies forward.
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Looking at her season as a whole, the Brazilian’s upward trajectory steadily emerges, with her top-five finish in Zandvoort Race 2 being a standout moment. More frequent top-10 performances in Qualifying would go a long way to helping her podium aspirations because she’s shown all the ingredients needed to achieve one but needs to put it together across a weekend.
LIA BLOCK
2025 represents a very different season for Lia Block. Whereas last year was all about adapting to single-seaters for the first time and dealing with a move into the unknown, this campaign has to be about getting those much sought-after podiums and wins.
Seven points finishes in 14 races and an eighth-place finish in the Drivers’ Standings are not results to be overlooked, but it’s no secret that the 18-year-old has higher aspirations for year two.
Her performance across the entire Singapore weekend demonstrated how much of a force Block could be when she gets it together, with two top-four Qualifying results paying off with back-to-back P4 finishes.
With her foundations in open-wheel racing well and truly settled, the American needs to tap into what made that weekend so impressive — taking each step and session as it comes because replicating performances like that should push her into becoming one of the season’s leading contenders.
One of two teams that failed to score a win last year and with a single podium to their name, ART will view 2024 as a transition year to move on to bigger and better things this season.