Finlay McSporran
Published: 16:23, 12th May 2025
Sebastian Wheldon, son of the late IndyCar driver Dan Wheldon, is an Andretti junior driver currently racing in Italian F4.
While some might have expected him to follow in the footsteps of his father and race in IndyCar, it would appear that the 16-year-old has a different destination in mind.
Wheldon made a name for himself last week when he took victory in race one during the opening round of Italian F4 at Misano. He currently sits second in the standings 22 points behind his Prema teammate Kean Nakamura-Berta, in what is his first time racing in Europe.
The American’s first outing in a single seater came in 2023 when he competed in the Skip Barber Formula Race Series, a championship that helps train young drivers on their road to IndyCar, with Alexander Rossi and Joseph Newgarden being just some of the drivers who have competed in it.
In 2023 Wheldon won the title on his first attempt, and stepped up to USF juniors the year after. He would end that season third, just 21 points behind champion Max Taylor, a driver who’s now competing in Indy NXT, the final stepping stone before IndyCar.
Unlike Taylor however, Wheldon’s time racing in America would end here.
Instead, he went to compete in the Formula 4 Middle-Eastern series where he finished seventh in the standings with 90 points and one podium to his name.
That brings us to today, where he is currently competing in Italian F4 with Prema, a series that certainly isn’t on the road to IndyCar, which suggests that maybe IndyCar isn’t the priority, and that a career in Formula 1 is the real target.
Interestingly, Wheldon has retained his support from Andretti and remains one of their junior drivers, which has led some to speculate that they could be lining him up for a seat at the new GM-Cadillac F1 team sometime in the future.
One of Wheldon’s main sponsors right now is American insurance technology company Gainbridge, which is owned by Dan Towriss, CEO of group 1001. Towriss played a big role in making Cadillac’s F1 dream a reality, thanks to his role as the chief executive of the motorsport division of TWG Global, an Investing firms which is the majority owner of Andretti global.
The new Cadillac team will also be using Andretti’s satellite base and staff in the UK.
While F1’s 11th team may not officially be tied to Andretti, it still has a lot of links to the American motorsport giant, and with one of their juniors making their way up the single seater ladder towards F1, it’s not too much of a stretch to assume that Sebastian Wheldon may be America’s next F1 driver.
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