Nyck deVries

Nyck de Vries had spent years knocking on the door of the top junior single-seater title, and in 2019 he finally kicked it down. The Dutchman, racing for ART, drove with the authority of a veteran who knew this was his moment, marrying experience to genuine pace to control a long, attritional campaign. Nicholas Latifi was the steadiest of his challengers and would graduate to Williams, but de Vries was a class apart when it mattered. The season unfolded against a sombre backdrop after the death of Anthoine Hubert at Spa, a tragedy that united the paddock in grief. De Vries' title closed a long junior chapter and opened the door to Formula E success — and, later, a brief Formula 1 cameo.