From karts to championship leader: the Nikola Tsolov story

Two races into his rookie FIA Formula 2 season, Nikola Tsolov is leading the championship. He is 19 years old, Bulgarian, drives the #6 Campos Racing entry, and wears Red Bull Junior Team colours. None of that is supposed to be possible from where he started.

This is how a kid from Sofia, whose family nearly ran out of karting budget before he hit puberty, became the first Bulgarian to win an F2 race, smashed the all-time F3 wins record, and put himself on a realistic path to a Formula 1 seat.

Karting: the FA Racing years

Tsolov's early career was almost stopped by money, not talent. Bulgaria has very little open-wheel infrastructure — historically the country has leaned toward rallying — and chasing a serious karting career meant moving to Italy as a child to find proper competition.

The breakthrough came when he was picked up by FA Racing, Fernando Alonso's karting team. That relationship became the spine of his career. In 2021, Alonso personally selected the 14-year-old Tsolov to share a kart with him, Pedro de la Rosa and Ángel Burgueño at the Dubai 24 Hours endurance race. They finished on the podium.

This isn't just trivia — it's the reason Tsolov today races the way he does. The aggressive, late-braking, calculating style that wins him F2 races in 2026 was learned in Alonso's setup.

2022 — F4 with Campos: total domination

His single-seater debut couldn't have gone better. Tsolov entered the Spanish F4 Championship with Campos Racing and didn't just win — he obliterated it. Thirteen victories from twenty-one races. The title was sealed three races before the season finale.

Campos Racing has been a recurring character in this story. Tsolov has driven for them in F4, F3 and F2, and every time the partnership has clicked, the results have been historic. The same year he won F4, he was signed to the Alpine Affiliate Programme, his first manufacturer backing.

2023–2025 — three F3 seasons, one record

2023: the learning year (ART Grand Prix)

Tsolov was fast-tracked straight into FIA Formula 3 with ART Grand Prix, one of the youngest drivers on the grid. The results were tough — he finished 22nd in the standings — but he scored his first F3 points late in the year at Spa and Monza. A developmental season, not a wasted one.

2024: the breakthrough (ART Grand Prix)

The second F3 year is where it all started clicking. Tsolov took three race wins: sprint victories in Monaco and Spielberg, and a maiden Feature Race win in Budapest. He finished 11th overall — a quiet number that doesn't reflect how much faster he had become.

2025: the title fight (Campos Racing)

The third F3 season is the one that put him on the F1 radar. Reuniting with Campos, Tsolov mounted a full championship charge. He took a stunning pole position in Monaco — beating series leader Rafael Câmara — and converted it into a commanding lights-to-flag win.

He finished Vice-Champion behind Câmara — the rivalry that has carried into F2 — but with the all-time F3 wins record in his pocket. Five F3 victories spread across three seasons is a number nobody else has matched.

Late 2025: the Red Bull move

Two things happened in the second half of 2025 that changed Tsolov's career trajectory.

First, in November 2024 he left the Alpine Academy and was signed to the Red Bull Junior Team. The implication was immediate: Red Bull only picks juniors they see as F1-grid material. The summer after, he completed a Red Bull RB7 show run on the streets of Sofia — the first Bulgarian to drive an F1 car through his own capital, in Vettel's 2011 championship-winning chassis. He has described it since as the moment he'll "remember forever."

Second, Campos promoted him to F2 early, slotting him into their car for the final two rounds of the 2025 F2 season. He qualified 7th on his Lusail debut and scored a maiden F2 podium (P3) in the Yas Marina Sprint. The seat for 2026 was made permanent before the season was over.

2026 — establishing F2 dominance

Round 1, Melbourne: history

Tsolov qualified 5th at Albert Park. After a chaotic Sprint that left him outside the points, he attacked the Feature Race from the front of the second row and worked his way into the lead.

The first Bulgarian to ever win an FIA Formula 2 race. Round 1. Rookie. Championship leader from the opening weekend.

The Melbourne Feature Race victory is, statistically, the most significant result by any Bulgarian driver in single-seater history. Nobody from the country had previously won at this level. He didn't win it from a benevolent grid — he won it from P5 with a clean drive in a chaotic race.

Round 2, Miami: the Turn 17 fight

F2's first ever visit to Miami should have been a recovery weekend. Technical problems wrecked his Free Practice, leaving him out of position. He still managed to grab reverse-grid pole for the Sprint Race and converted it into a win — but not without drama.

On the final lap, Trident's Laurens van Hoepen got past him into the lead. Tsolov re-overtook him at Turn 17 and dragged the car to the line in a flat-out sprint to the chequered flag, becoming F2's first ever Miami winner.

The Feature the following day went the other way. He was tagged out by Inthraphuvasak on the opening lap and didn't finish. The championship lead survived only because the Melbourne and Miami sprint scores had been so strong.

The bigger picture

Three storylines run through this career:

The Alonso blueprint. Tsolov is, in a real sense, a Fernando Alonso protégé — managed through A14, mentored from karting, racing with the same calculating, opportunistic style that defines Alonso's wheel-to-wheel work.

The Bulgarian ceiling. Every win he takes is a national first — first F3 win, first F2 win, first F1 show run. The pipeline to get him here didn't exist; he built it.

The Campos synergy. Every time he has driven for Campos Racing, they have won together. F4 title. F3 Vice-Championship. And now leading both the F2 Drivers' and Teams' standings at the same time. It's one of the cleanest driver-team marriages in the junior categories.

What's next

The next round is Montréal, his championship lead intact but compressed. Câmara at Invicta is one point behind. Minì at MP is also a single point back. The fight at the front of F2 in 2026 is already going to be a season-long fixture.

Beyond that, the question becomes Racing Bulls. Tsolov is in the Red Bull pipeline at the right time — Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson are the current Racing Bulls drivers, and any seat opening in 2027 puts Tsolov in serious contention. Helmut Marko is reportedly still in close contact.

If he closes out the F2 championship from here, that conversation stops being theoretical.

The first Bulgarian Formula 1 driver in history is no longer an abstract idea. It's a specific person, in a specific car, leading a specific championship — and there is now a clear, plausible route from here to there.