\u201cThe team has a really strong lineup of drivers and they have proven to be a good team. I think with good teammates and a good team, there\u2019s no reason why we can\u2019t have lots of success.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be tough though. The rest of the grid is looking to be really competitive. It\u2019s probably the most competitive the championship has ever been. It\u2019s going to be good because a lot of the drivers have been racing in Europe, so it\u2019s a good practice and a warm-up for my F3 campaign next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharp had a character-building rookie season in Formula Three with Rodin Motorsport, showing flashes of the speed he\u2019s developed over the previous junior formula but the consistency wasn\u2019t there. He acquitted himself well in what is generally regarded as one of the most highly contested championships and secured a number of top 10 finishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very much looking forward to joining Prema. They are a proven team and have won championships in F3 and F2 and have developed drivers who have gone on to race in F1.\u201d <\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, Oliver Bearman and Kimi Antonelli are the latest in a long line of the team\u2019s former drivers.<\/p>\n
Louis Sharp made the transition to single-seaters in 2020. Photo \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait to join the team, and I\u2019ve already been working with the engineers and with the team. We\u2019re already starting to build a really good relationship, and I can see how much it means to them and how much of a good environment they provide. I can\u2019t wait for next year to start,\u201d Sharp said.<\/p>\n
His motorsport rise has been rapid. Born in Nottingham, Britain, he grew up in Christchurch and wasted little time making a name for himself first in karting as he established himself as the country\u2019s standout in his age group. His haul of national titles and series wins set a benchmark few have matched.<\/p>\n
His transition to single-seaters came in 2020 with New Zealand\u2019s Formula First Championship \u2013 a breeding ground for some of our best racers \u2013 and Sharp began winning races. A move into New Zealand Formula Ford followed, where he continued to feature at the front and led the championship before the call from Carlin Motorsport with an opportunity to race in the British Formula Four.<\/p>\n
Despite missing the opening rounds in 2022 because of age restrictions, Sharp finished fourth overall, with two wins and 12 podiums. He also claimed the UAE Formula Four Trophy Championship in the same year.<\/p>\n
He returned to British Formula Four in 2023 and completed the job, taking the championship title. The following year he moved up and won the GB3 Championship and headed into Formula Three in 2025.<\/p>\n
Sharp is hoping to use the Formula Regional series to build momentum using the back-to-back, high-intensity championship as a lead-in to his Formula Three campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe team has a really strong lineup of drivers and they have proven to be a good team.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[56796,95,1863,121534,18239,101085,19666,29188,14724,10813,1360,1345,121532,8454,68199,22050,111,139,69,2659,121531,47527,7798,3512,1115,5914,203,121533,16708,213,15487,1529,61,1733,1533,80],"class_list":["post-196764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-18yearold","tag-and","tag-back","tag-castrol","tag-championship","tag-contesting","tag-crack","tag-formula","tag-further","tag-grand","tag-having","tag-home","tag-honing","tag-including","tag-january","tag-louis","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oceania","tag-prema","tag-prix","tag-race","tag-racing","tag-recruit","tag-regional","tag-sharp","tag-singleseater","tag-skills","tag-sports","tag-talented","tag-three","tag-to","tag-toyota","tag-will","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}