Ferrari signs ex-Red Bull junior Ilott to its F1 Driver Academy
Ferrari has added ex-Red Bull junior and Formula 3 European Championship race winner Callum Ilott to its Formula 1 team's young driver programme
Ilott finished fourth in Euro F3 this season with six wins after switching to Prema Powerteam, and less than a week after completing that campaign has now been announced as the Ferrari Driver Academy's newest member.
It was the 18-year-old's third year in the category after graduating straight to F3 from karts, having succeeded Red Bull Formula 1 prodigy Max Verstappen as CIK-FIA European KF champion in 2014.
Ilott moved into cars with Red Bull backing but left the programme at the end of a disappointing campaign with Carlin in which he scored just one podium and finished 12th in the points.
A move to Verstappen's old F3 team Van Amersfoort Racing yielded two wins and sixth in the points, before Prema helped Ilott to comfortably his most impressive season to date.
Ilott is the first British driver to join the FDA, and with that backing would be expected to move into either GP3 or Formula 2.
If he contested the latter he could stay with the Prema team, but a move to GP3 would make sense - Ilott's new FDA team-mate Giuliano Alesi races in GP3 with Trident, the team Ilott made a one-off F2 appearance with this season.
The FDA's other members include F2 champion Charles Leclerc and his Prema team-mate Antonio Fuoco, Ilott's F3 Prema team-mate Guan Yu Zhou, Italian F4 points leader and German F4 title contender Marcus Armstrong, and Enzo Fittipaldi.
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