In the final part of Motorsport Week’s exclusive interview with Otmar Szafnauer, the former Formula 1 team boss reveals his approach to helping Van Amersfoort Racing become the premier team in the sport’s feeder series.
Szafnauer, who has headed F1 teams including Alpine, has been CEO of Van Amersfoort Racing, a prominent team within Formula 2 and Formula 3, since 2025.
Despite being the team’s CEO rather than the Team Principal, Szafnauer maintains close relationships with the drivers in each category. VAR has seen so many future F1 drivers come through its ranks, with Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Ollie Bearman just three of its alumni.
Szafnauer explained how, for him, it’s important to understand, encourage, and motivate the drivers in his teams. Equally, he frequently looks at the lower formulas for the next group of drivers he wants to drive for VAR and support through their journey.
“On a race-to-race basis, I talk to them motivationally, that’s for sure,” he told Motorsport Week. “I’m also involved in helping select the next drivers for VAR because, you know, invariably after a few years they all move, they do one, two, maybe three years in a series, and then they move.
“So there’s always a constant turn of drivers, and there’s a constant pipeline, and I like to look now at the even lower formulas to make sure that we pick the best drivers that we can.”
The driver’s ability and dedication have a vital impact on the feeder series, where Szafnauer points out that the focus is on that driver quality. Often being where the difference is made in the feeder series.
“In a race series where the development is limited, a lot more influence comes from the driver engineer there, and it’s good to have drivers that can learn quickly, have the innate talent and work hard.”
The 2026 season
At Silverstone, Rafael Villagomez, Van Amersfoort’s Formula 2 driver, had an impressive weekend. After struggling in the opening rounds, Villagomez took a Sprint Race podium and, finally, a Feature Race podium.
He admitted the weekend felt like a turning point given the work they’d put in. However, it was a more difficult weekend for F3. Leaving a weekend with strong results for both series is Szafnauer’s next aim.
“We had a good F2 weekend here. I told the team that what we’ve got to do soon is have a good weekend in F2 and F3 at the same time.
“In F3, qualifying is so critical because it’s always a DRS train, and we just unfortunately didn’t optimise qualifying here and didn’t have such a good weekend. F2 a little bit less so. We had a really good weekend. It could have been better, I think. Nicolas Varrone should have been in the points as well, but Rafa Jr finishing second in the feature race was really good.
“It does feel like everything’s got to come together. Including the driver, and you know, staying out of trouble and not running into things. So we had a really good weekend.”
Szafnauer’s career has featured countless ups and downs and has spanned decades. Now, as he takes on a new adventure, it felt right to ask him to reflect on his career.
When asked if there was anything, looking back on his career, that he would change. He joked: “Maybe start earlier”.
His comment optimised the attitude of a man who has given his life to motorsport.
Many deemed Szafanauer gone from the sport in 2023 when he left Alpine. With his chances in F1 and even his motorsport career over.
Instead, he proved that he was not ready to roll over and give up, but looked to take Van Amersfoort Racing to glory. Arguably one of the biggest challenges yet.
READ MORE – Otmar Szafnauer on taking on the ‘close-knit’ world of F1’s feeder series
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