Nobody arrives with a name.
Every driver who arrives at AS Motorsport starts the same way: with no name and a karting licence. There's no roster of promising graduates to draw from, no shortcut around the first laps in a formula car — the clutch, the sequential gearbox, the downforce that only exists above a certain speed. Teaching from zero is the job, not an exception to it.
You need to know that all drivers who come to our team have no name; they are complete rookies with just karting experience. So our job is to teach them from the first step. Some of the drivers don't even know what a clutch is.
I would say the opposite; our main goal is a driver academy-racing school, so coaching, testing, and preparing the drivers are most important to us. Competitions come at the end of this process. For various reasons, some drivers don't even reach the competition phase. But we create a personalized program for each driver. Before we start, we have a meeting with the parents or manager of the driver to understand their goals and wishes.
Andrej SlakFounder and team principalIn practice, that means most of the work happens before a driver ever lines up on a grid. Some don't reach a race at all, and that's treated as a legitimate outcome, not a failure. The process starts with a conversation, not a signature.
How a driver gets from karting to a grid.
The meeting
It starts with a conversation — the driver, and the parents or manager, sitting down with the team to talk about goals and budget. Everything that follows is built around what's said in that first meeting.
The programme
Written for one driver, not copied from a template: how many testing days, which circuits, what championship at the end — or none, if that's the honest answer.
Coaching and testing
Misano, Cremona, Varano, Adria. Simulator work before every track day, a race engineer, telemetry pulled apart after every session. Most of the time and the budget goes here.
Racing
When the driver is ready. Not when the calendar says so.
He came with no name. He left as a champion.
Kacper Sztuka is the clearest answer to what this process produces. The 2023 Italian F4 title belongs to him and to US Racing, the team he moved to for his title-winning year. What belongs to AS Motorsport is the year before the year — a season of testing nobody was watching, a day at Misano that ran to ninety-nine laps, a rookie season where eleventh place was the best result of the year.
He's the team's first graduate to win a formula championship, and the first to reach a Formula 1 junior programme.
Kacper was a great pride for us. He showed what we were capable of – to detect a diamond in the rough, to support him and push him to reveal himself.
Five years, year by year.
2020 – 2021
First year in the structure. Testing and preparation only – not a single race. Ninety-nine laps in one day at Misano, February 2021.
2021
Rookie season in Italian F4 with AS Motorsport. Best result: 11th place at Misano. Two rookie-class podiums. 8th in the rookie standings.
2022
Moved to US Racing, one of the grid's leading teams. A podium and a win in his first weekend there. 6th overall by season's end.
2023
Italian F4 champion – the tenth champion in the series' history.
2024
Red Bull Junior Team.
Other names that came through here.
Part of the team during the Formula Renault and early F4 years. Later a Formula 2 vice-champion (2023) and Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 reserve driver.
Italian Karting Championship OK-class vice-champion in 2023. Raced with the team across Italian F4, E4 and the Formula Winter Series in 2025.
FIA Girls on Track finalist in 2022. Formula Winter Series with the team in 2025.
Nordic 4 Rookie champion in 2024. Formula Winter Series with the team in 2025.
In F4 CEZ since 2024, still part of the line-up 2026.
Of course, we keep in contact with our former drivers, and some of them later cooperate with us as coaches or talent scouts.
Most parents are in a rush. That's usually the mistake.
Sztuka's path is the one the team points to when a parent asks how long this takes: a full year of testing before a single race, then one season with AS Motorsport, then a move to a bigger team once he was ready — not before.
Kacper Sztuka took the right path. He spent the first year doing testing and preparation, then one season with our team. When he was ready, he moved to a top team and realized his ambitions to become a champion. Many parents are in a rush, wanting their children to be champions immediately, and usually, it doesn't end well.
Nobody here is the second car.
Drivers can race without the pressure that they can find in bigger teams. By joining AS, they join a growing team. It can be really rewarding for them if they get good performances in a small team like us.
Why every serious season starts in winter now.
A first season now effectively starts in winter. The Formula Winter Series lets a driver test race setups against a real field, build a working rhythm with engineers and mechanics, and arrive at round one of the main season already race-ready — instead of a few steps behind everyone who skipped it.
Nowadays, it has become compulsory to do a winter series. These championships allow teams to test set-ups, to create a real working dynamic with drivers, and for them, it's the opportunity to be fully ready and operational for the first round of their main programme. Those who don't do these series often start with a little handicap compared to those who did it.
Italian F4 became a world championship. Budgets followed.
Italian F4 has, in practical terms, become a world championship — and its budgets have followed. AS Motorsport still races there, but for drivers looking for a high-level championship at a more reasonable investment, F4 CEZ is the alternative the team points to: 44 cars from 21 teams in 2026, a record for European F4.
The main factor is that the Italian championship has practically become a world championship with budgets that are becoming impossible for many drivers. We will still participate in it, of course, but we are looking for a valid alternative for drivers who want a high-level championship with a reasonable investment. F4 CEZ seems to be a valid alternative.
None of that gets a number on this page — the actual figure depends on the programme, and that's exactly what the first meeting is for.
Questions parents actually ask.
Everything on this page, minus the numbers we don't publish.
Does my son need a racing licence to start?
No. Most drivers arrive with karting experience only, and testing begins from there.
What if he isn't ready to race after the first year?
That happens, and it isn't treated as a setback. Testing and preparation continue until a driver is ready — Kacper Sztuka spent a full year in that phase before his first race.
Where does the testing happen?
Mostly at Misano, Cremona, Varano and Adria, all within reach of the team's Italian workshop.
What exactly is included in a programme?
A personal race engineer, mechanics, a physical trainer, simulator work before track sessions, telemetry analysis benchmarked against previous years' reference laps, and an Arrive & Drive format. A crash damage deposit applies, as it does at any professional team.
Do you take drivers from outside Slovenia and Italy?
Yes. The team already includes drivers from Poland, Italy, France, Germany and Denmark.
How many drivers do you run at once?
Usually two or three, sometimes more for testing – small enough that no driver is competing with a teammate for attention.
Who talks to the driver on the radio?
Their race engineer, the same person who reviews their telemetry after each session.
What happens after a season with you?
For drivers who are ready, a move to a bigger team with a full championship campaign – the way Kacper Sztuka moved to US Racing after his season here.
Tell us where he's coming from.
Karting, another series, or nothing yet – that's the first step, not a deposit.