AIX Racing 2025 Season Review: An underrated season with a lot more to come

AIX Racing certainly made some waves this season with two Pole Positions in the last three rounds, a Sakhir Sprint Race podium and several more highlight moments.

Team Manager Kenny Kirwan is on hand to recap the year and to preview the upcoming winter tests, with the feeling within his squad one of positivity at the end of the 2025 campaign.

BUILDING ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF 2024

“I think from where we were in 2024, we did not set ourselves up very well for 2025 in terms of drivers. In the driver market, we were at the back a lot, we were new into the thing, but with an old car that everybody knew, and it took a reset with the new car to level the playing field a little bit.

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“This has been the first year that AIX Investment Group have actually owned it from the beginning whereas last year we had a mid-year exchange, so it took a little bit of time.”

SIGNING AND GETTING THE BEST OUT OF BENAVIDES

“Brad came to us as a Champion of the Euroformula Champion. But he wasn't fully ready. He is a particular kind of guy and he needs to have the environment around him for everything to work and that took probably four or five events to create that.

“I was very mindful, but a bit frustrated because anybody who is a Champion has to deliver week in, week out and with Brad it was very erratic. I took it as a personal failure, just trying to figure out how I can create an environment for him.

“Eventually, spending time together, we do a lot of preparation work in the UK on the simulator and I started to attend all the sessions. I think spending the time with the drivers massively helped because it put me in the right frame of mind, and better prepared as a TM, but also you are spending time with drivers, you are seeing the weaknesses and the issues.

“That was an engineering topic for us to look at but also at Brad, because I believed he was maybe quite aggressive in the opening laps, and it also didn't help the situation.”

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ENDING THE SEASON WELL IN MONZA

“Monza is not very high deg and there were a lot of Safety Cars, so it's still something I am quite cautious about, we are going to use post-season testing to work on race pace and tyre management, because that has been our Achillies heel.

“Monza was nice, was really looking forward to a podium, but it made for great TV. It also highlights the level of the competition and the drivers. We worked with Tas last year, and he is a great guy, he did a super job, and the racing was clean.

“But it's nice to know we can run with Campos. Brad drove a good race, he made one small error, dropped his wheels into the gravel and then he just went for a move, a do-or-die move.

“We also had the opportunity to bring in Fernando Barrichello to get one round in at the end, and we made the decision to go down that road to prepare him.

“Nicola Marinangeli is also an absolute gentleman, a really nice driver to work with. It's sad to see him go, but I hope to see him around again.”

GOOD MORALE HEADING INTO THE WINTER

“The criteria for the drivers was, ‘Do these drivers want to drive for us?’, which is already a win psychologically and Yevan David should be very quick.

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“There were a couple of things, we were talking to eight or nine drivers, and the one thing we realised spending time with Brad was the team he came from in Euroformula, they teach their drivers to drive a certain way, and the sort of feeling then was that if we had that sort of approach we could be aligned on our approach to how the drivers should drive.

“I looked at that team and the drivers in that pool and we came up with Yevan and Fefo. They all raced together and it's really friendly. We have a WhatsApp group already for 2026, it's really nice.

“I am really looking forward continuing this as a team, on the performance side, it also helps because it has become clear what our objectives are for post-season testing. We don't need to be going for lap time, we know the areas we feel we need to improve on, and that will be key.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON THE SEASON

“We are a bit underrated as a team, which is to be expected, but 2025 was our first proper year with it and I like to think we can continue to make strides and establish ourselves as one of the leading teams in FIA Formula 3 for sure.

“There has been a lot of hard work from everyone. AVL our engineering partner, and AIX, just in terms of their understanding, patience, and support, invested a lot over the winter. They didn't throw money at it but spending it in the areas where we looked at, and it has helped.

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“We did a factory move in December, so we moved to a more modern facility in Frankfurt. They are very active in the business.

“I think it has been a good year. I think our position in the Teams' Championship does not reflect where we are, I think we could be a couple of places higher than that, my expectation for next year is to be targeting further up the order. It would be nice not to be 26th, 27th, 28th.”