Italian
Brando Badoer is an Italian racing driver in the FIA Formula 3 Championship and the son of Luca Badoer, the long-serving Ferrari test driver and 1990s grand prix racer. He carries one of the most famous names in Italian motorsport — and is intent on writing his own story.
The climb
Born in Montebelluna, in the Veneto, in 2006, Badoer cut his teeth in WSK karting from 2017, taking runner-up in the 2018 WSK Open Cup and third in the 2020 WSK Super Master Series. He moved into Italian F4, where he found his feet in 2023 with sixth overall and five podiums after a learning year in 2022. In 2024 he stepped up to the Formula Regional European Championship (FRECA), finishing fifth overall with six podiums and a maiden pole at Mugello. His talent attracted serious attention: he attended a Ferrari Driver Academy ACI scouting camp in 2022 alongside future Mercedes F1 star Andrea Kimi Antonelli, and was on McLaren's books — first optioned in 2023, formally joining its Driver Development Programme in 2024 before departing after a single year in November 2025.
Formula 3
Badoer reached FIA Formula 3 in 2025 with PREMA Racing, traditionally the category's benchmark team, alongside Noel León and Ugo Ugochukwu — but the year was a slog. He managed just 13 points and 25th in the standings with no podiums, comprehensively out-scored by both team-mates and left to question whether the famous surname was as much a weight as a gift.
2026 / current season
A switch to Rodin Motorsport transformed his sophomore season. He opened with a podium, taking third in the truncated Melbourne sprint, an early sign that the previous year's struggles had been more about circumstance than talent. Then at Monaco he delivered the breakthrough every young driver dreams of: qualifying second, passing polesitter Théophile Naël cleanly off the line and controlling the Feature Race from the front for his maiden F3 victory — a marquee win on the most prestigious and unforgiving street circuit in motorsport, and on the very weekend his father's old Ferrari ties make the paddock take notice. No longer tied to a major academy after the McLaren split, Badoer is racing on merit to prove the famous name on his car is now his own.