AUTOSPORT's Stars of Tomorrow: September 2013

ESTEBAN OCON

Currently lying in third place in the Formula Renault Eurocup, this just-turned-17 Frenchman has been groomed for stardom for some time.

Ocon was picked up by the Gravity management company a few years ago, while he was sweeping all before him on the French karting scene.

Under the umbrella of the Lotus F1 Junior Team, he made an ambitious move to the Formula Renault Eurocup - combined with a programme in Renault ALPS - at the beginning of 2012, at the age of just 15 and a half.

He had even been in the Formula Renault UK Winter Series test sessions in 2011, in which he set decent lap times, although he was ineligible to compete on race weekends due to his youth.

With the Koiranen team he had a decent - if not sensational - 2012 campaign, before making the move to the rejuvenated ART Junior Team for this year.

Ocon took a front-row position for the opening round of this year's Eurocup, and since then has taken pole at Moscow Raceway. But, even though he is acknowledged as the major threat to Oliver Rowland and Pierre Gasly, he hasn't yet managed to win a race.

He has won a round of the Renault North European Cup, when he triumphed in the Hockenheim opener as a 'warm-up' for the Eurocup, but to date that remains his only win in cars.

Even so, he is a regular threat at the front and will doubtless prove a competitive force in next year's Formula 3 European Championship. This has for some time been his route planned by Gravity/Lotus, and to that end Ocon tested with Prema Powerteam last week at Imola. According to one onlooker, he was extremely impressive.

MAXIMILIAN GUNTHER

Talented young German racing drivers seem to be growing on trees at the moment, and the latest to make his mark is this 16-year-old from near the Austrian border, who has been arguably the fastest man in ADAC Formel Masters in the second half of the season.

While Belgian Alessio Picariello, his team-mate with Mucke Motorsport, has romped to the title, Gunther finally broke his winning duck with a double victory at Lausitz a month ago.

But Gunther had already signalled his intentions with a spree of pole positions, with a total of six consecutive up to and including Lausitz.

After dabbling with ski-jumping as a young kid, Gunther rose through the well-structured German karting scene, and only just missed out on winning the Formula BMW Talent Cup 'scholarship series' at the age of 14 in 2011.

He was too young to graduate into Formel Masters at the start of 2012 (the minimum age is 15), but has made up for lost time this year. Mechanical problems hampered him last time out in Slovakia, but he looks favourite to take the championship runner-up spot.

With backing from the ADAC Sports Foundation and with the German motorsport ladder so clearly defined - and with time on his side - Gunther looks a very useful prospect.

ARTEM MARKELOV

It's tempting to say that the current second-placed driver in the German Formula 3 Cup is looking pretty good to get a drive in GP3 next season if the Russian Time squad manages to get a programme together to complement its GP2 team.

After all, his manager is Igor Mazepa, who is also the boss at Russian Time. Furthermore, that team is run with a lot of assistance from Motopark Academy, the ensemble with which Markelov has been associated since the start of his career in car racing.

The Muscovite did a good job to finish fourth in his rookie campaign in ADAC Formel Masters in 2011, and then jumped straight to the German F3 series with Motopark's Lotus-dubbed team.

Two race wins went his way, and he looked as though he would be a strong contender with the same squad in 2013. That was counting without the whirlwind form of German newcomer Marvin Kirchhofer, who has wrapped up the title with a round to spare.

Markelov may have been outperformed by Motopark/Lotus team-mate Kirchhofer, but in turn he sits ahead in points of the team's third driver, Emil Bernstorff.

That is thanks to incredible consistency. Before the Lausitz round a month ago, Markelov had taken 15 podium finishes from 17 races without winning, but finally broke his season duck with a double at the East German track.

With Bernstorff having finished an outstanding third on a one-off outing in the Masters of F3 with Prema, that points to all three of Motopark's current line-up having plenty of talent, and Markelov could easily emulate Daniil Kvyat as a GP3 race winner - if Russian Time gets an entry.

JULES GOUNON

Motor racing isn't actually short of 'son ofs', and now Jules Gounon - whose father Jean-Marc raced in Formula 1 in 1993 and '94 and has had a long career in sportscar racing - is chasing those other Frenchmen with illustrious dads, Nicolas Prost and Adrien Tambay.

Gounon Jr has hit some strong form in the centrally-run French Formula 4 Championship as he nears the end of his maiden season of car racing. While Anthoine Hubert has an almost-unbeatable points advantage, Gounon starred last time out at Magny-Cours by winning all three races - including the top-10-reversed-grid race.

He isn't the first to do that - Hubert managed it at Spa - but Gounon, who had already emulated his dad by becoming a winner in Pau, had a tougher job to do the same on a circuit where it's tougher to pass.

Admittedly things fell his way with mistakes from a couple of rivals and variable weather conditions, but it was still an impressive achievement from a driver who is targeting the Formula Renault Eurocup next season.

If he gets there, this 18-year-old will be one of the least experienced in terms of length of overall career. Gounon admits that he was writing letters to Pere Noel asking for a kart since the age of eight, but it didn't arrive until he was 15.

Despite this, he soon attained significant success at both national and international level. If he continues this rate of progress, Gounon Sr will soon be spending a lot more money than he saved while delaying the inevitable karting career!

HARRISON SCOTT

Now that Dan Cammish has decided not to contest the last two rounds of the British Formula Ford Championship, the man who starts as favourite to stand on top of the podium at Silverstone and Brands Hatch is this 17-year-old Essex lad.

An exemplary karting career preceded fledgling steps in a single-seater with tests in the InterSteps Formula BMW of one of British junior motorsport's most seasoned teams, Falcon Motorsport.

He stayed with the Nick Streatfield-run team to compete in Formula Ford this year, and has been the standout rookie contender at the wheel of the squad's Mygale.

With driver coaching from Ollie Hancock and backing from vintage and historic racer Peter Fenichel, he has progressed quickly and was on the podium second time out at Donington Park.

While Cammish has won all 24 races to date, Scott has taken six second places and seven thirds. At Croft in June, he became the first man to deny Cammish a pole position, one of only two drivers to do so this season.

If anything, Scott has been in a good position to learn from watching the champion at work without outside expectation of winning, and how he copes with the increase in pressure in the coming weeks will be one of the big questions on the TOCA support package.

ALESSIO ROVERA

The Italian CRAM Competition team of Marcello Rosei launched many a driver on the road to the top through the 1990s and 2000s, as alumni Felipe Massa, Tony Kanaan, Enrique Bernoldi, Pastor Maldonado, Jerome d'Ambrosio and Jose Maria Lopez will attest.

Now Rosei, plus sons Gabriele and Simone, is behind CRAM Motorsport, and the team has a new champion in the form of Alessio Rovera.

Aged 18, Rovera has won the Italian Formula Abarth Championship with a round to spare. While the category produced a lot of talents as a European series from 2010-12, it was downgraded to national status this season as junior competition in Europe goes through a state of flux.

Rovera has done a strong job to win six of the 10 non-reversed-grid races held this season, and has topped eight out of 10 qualifying sessions.

The field may have been small, but among the Varese pilot's rivals has been one driver who was good enough to take podium finishes in Formula Abarth in 2010, when the category included Raffaele Marciello and Sergey Sirotkin.

It seems likely that he will generate a fair degree of interest for next year from teams in Formula Renault, where there is a strong degree of Italian participation.