Founded in 1996, the UK team won more British F3 titles than any other operation and produced drivers for Formula One, IndyCar and Formula E before its 2023 rebrand.
Carlin Motorsport was a UK team founded in 1996 that competed in junior series such as Formula 2 and Formula 3, as well as IndyCar. It won the British F3 championship many times and the 2017 European F3 title, and it produced many drivers for higher formulae.
Carlin Motorsport was a British racing team that worked mainly in junior championships such as FIA Formula 2 and FIA Formula 3. It also raced in IndyCar and the European Le Mans Series, and it became one of the most productive feeder teams in modern motorsport.
What was Carlin Motorsport?
The outfit, known at various points as Carlin Motorsport and Rodin Carlin, was a British racing team. It was founded in 1996 by Trevor Carlin and Martin Stone, and it later raced in a long list of series, from Formula BMW UK to GP2 and FIA Formula E.
The team became known simply as Carlin after a restructuring that brought in investment from Grahame Chilton's Capsicum Motorsport. Capsicum was headed by Grahame Chilton and Rupert Swallow, and the partnership was sought to secure the long-term future of the operation.
A British junior team that built a record in F3 and F2 and sent its drivers on to Formula One, IndyCar and beyond.
How did Carlin get started in A1 GP and British F3?
In the 2005-06 A1 Grand Prix season Carlin ran the Lebanon, Portugal and Japan entries. It then kept only the Lebanon team for 2006-07 and 2007-08, switched to the Korea team in 2008-09, and the series folded soon after.
The team has competed in British Formula 3 since 1997. Its first victory came with Narain Karthikeyan in 1999, and since 2001 it has won a series of titles that made it the most successful team in British F3 history.
Those champions include Takuma Sato in 2001, Alan van der Merwe in 2003, Alvaro Parente in 2005, Jaime Alguersuari in 2008, Daniel Ricciardo in 2009, Jean-Eric Vergne in 2010, Felipe Nasr in 2011, Jack Harvey in 2012, Jordan King in 2013 and Enaam Ahmed in 2017. The list shows how many future Formula One drivers passed through the programme.
How did the European F3 years go?
Carlin joined the Formula 3 Euro Series in 2008, and the early seasons brought little reward. After poor results in its first three seasons, William Buller finished fifth in 2012 and Carlos Sainz Jr. finished ninth. That season the team also ran in the 2012 FIA European Formula 3 Championship, with Sainz fifth and Buller sixth.
In 2013 Harry Tincknell was fifth and Jordan King sixth. The 2014 results were led by Antonio Giovinazzi in sixth, with King and Jake Dennis close behind. A year later Giovinazzi became runner-up, while George Russell took sixth, but 2016 was a rough year, with no driver in the top ten.
The turning point came in 2017, when Lando Norris won the FIA European Formula 3 Championship as a rookie. That made Carlin the only team other than Prema to win the title in that series. Jehan Daruvala finished sixth and Ferdinand Habsburg seventh that year.
The 2018 season was the final year of the European championship. Daruvala was tenth, Sacha Fenestraz eleventh and Habsburg thirteenth, closing out the series for the team.
What did the Macau Grand Prix bring?
Carlin has entered the Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix since 1998. Takuma Sato won the race in 2001, and Robert Kubica was second in 2005. Sebastien Buemi was fourth in 2006 and Brendon Hartley third in 2008.
Felipe Nasr was second in 2011, Antonio Felix da Costa won in 2012 and again in 2016, and Antonio Giovinazzi was fourth in 2015. Macau has been a useful showcase for the team's drivers, since the race puts many talented juniors on the same grid and draws attention from across the sport.
How did the Renault 3.5 Series years unfold?
Carlin contested the Formula Nissan and Renault 3.5 Series from 2003, and it won a race in the series every year after that. It won two drivers' titles and one team championship, with Mikhail Aleshin the champion in 2010 and Robert Wickens in 2011.
Carlin took a sabbatical in 2014 because of driver and budget issues. It returned in 2015, replacing the Czech outfit ISR Racing, and then withdrew again once the series lost its Renault backing. RP Motorsport took its place in the 2016 Formula V8 3.5 Championship.
How did GP3 go for the team?
The team joined the GP3 Series in 2010 for its inaugural season, finishing fifth in the championship with 42 points. In 2011 it finished ninth overall, before a strong 2012 brought third in the teams' standings and third in the drivers' championship.
In 2013 Carlin finished fourth in the teams' standings, while Arden's Daniil Kvyat claimed the drivers' title. The following year the team took the constructors' title, and Red Bull Junior Alex Lynn won the drivers' crown. For 2015 Jann Mardenborough, Mitch Gilbert and Ferrari Academy driver Antonio Fuoco raced for Carlin, but the team withdrew from the series at the end of that season.
What happened in the GP2 Series?
GP2 became a home for the team from 2011, when it entered the series for the first time. Its lead driver was Max Chilton, a former Carlin driver in British F3, while Mikhail Aleshin took the second seat before running out of financial support. Oliver Turvey and then Alvaro Parente completed the line-up that year.
For 2012 the team formed a partnership with the Marussia Formula One team. Chilton took two race victories on the way to fourth in the drivers' championship, and his teammate Rio Haryanto finished 14th with a pole position and a fastest lap. Carlin improved to fifth in the teams' championship.
In 2013 Felipe Nasr and Jolyon Palmer took two wins and nine podiums between them. Nasr was a title contender until the final stages, but the team lost the teams' championship to Russian Time on equal points after its rival took more wins over the season.
Nasr left at the end of 2014 to race for Sauber in Formula One, and the team finished ninth in 2015, its first season since 2012 outside the top two. In 2016 Marvin Kirchhofer and Sergio Canamasas finished tenth, and the team withdrew the following year.
Why did the Indy Lights and IndyCar years matter?
On 1 November 2014 Carlin announced that it would join the Indy Lights series, the feeder for IndyCar, from the 2015 season. It set up a new US base in Poughkeepsie, New York, and worked with the suppliers Dallara, AER and Cooper.
Ed Jones moved to the Indy Lights team in 2015 after driving for its Formula 3 effort. In 2016 he took the drivers' championship while Carlin won the teams' championship. In 2017 Matheus Leist won the Freedom 100, but the team ended its Indy Lights programme afterwards to focus on IndyCar. The Indy Lights years gave the team a route into American open-wheel racing before the IndyCar step.
In December 2017 Carlin announced it would enter the IndyCar Series from the 2018 season with two full-time entries, driven by Max Chilton and Charlie Kimball. It was the team's first entry in a non-junior open-wheel formula. At the end of the 2021 season Carlin pulled out and sold its assets to Juncos Hollinger Racing.
How did Formula 2 and Formula 3 work out?
In 2018 Carlin joined the FIA Formula 2 Championship and took the teams' title at the first attempt with Sergio Sette Camara and Lando Norris. Norris finished second in the drivers' championship, while Sette Camara was sixth.
In 2019 Nobuharu Matsushita and Louis Deletraz finished sixth and eighth. In 2020 Yuki Tsunoda finished third in the drivers' championship, and the team finished third in the teams' standings with four race wins. Jehan Daruvala was retained for 2021, and Dan Ticktum replaced the Formula One-bound Tsunoda. Those results made the 2018 and 2020 seasons among the strongest in the team's later history.
The team was also one of ten listed for the inaugural FIA Formula 3 Championship in October 2018. In January 2019 it entered a partnership with the Japanese investment firm Buzz, and in 2020 it achieved its first F3 podium with Clement Novalak, who finished 12th in the standings.
What did the sportscar and Extreme E projects add?
In 2019 Carlin returned to sportscars by fielding a lone Dallara P217 in the LMP2 class of the European Le Mans Series. The programme was a long-awaited return, since the team had last run a sportscar in the 2001 Porsche Supercup. The #45 car was driven by Jack Manchester, Harry Tincknell and Ben Barnicoat, while Olivier Pla and Harrison Newey stepped in for single rounds.
In 2023 Lewis Hamilton's X44 team partnered with Carlin for the Extreme E season, led by team principal Stephanie Carlin. That same year the team was reshaped, with Rodin Cars taking a majority stake and the rebrand to Rodin Carlin.
What were the key results?
The main results are the British F3 titles, the 2017 European F3 title with Norris and the 2018 Formula 2 teams' crown. The table below sets out the headline results by series and year.
| Series | Result | Year |
|---|---|---|
| British Formula 3 | Champion, Takuma Sato | 2001 |
| British Formula 3 | Champion, Jaime Alguersuari | 2008 |
| British Formula 3 | Champion, Daniel Ricciardo | 2009 |
| Formula Nissan/Renault 3.5 | Champion, Mikhail Aleshin | 2010 |
| GP3 Series | Constructors' title | 2014 |
| FIA European Formula 3 | Champion, Lando Norris | 2017 |
| Indy Lights | Teams' championship, with Ed Jones champion | 2016 |
| FIA Formula 2 | Teams' championship, with Norris and Sette Camara | 2018 |
| FIA Formula 2 | Third in teams' championship with four race wins | 2020 |
What is the legacy of Carlin Motorsport?
The team's legacy is a long list of drivers who moved up into Formula One, IndyCar and sportscars, including Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz Jr., Daniel Ricciardo and George Russell. Its British F3 record and its European title in 2017 set a standard few junior operations have matched. The spread of its alumni, from British F3 champions to IndyCar champions such as Josef Newgarden, reflects how the team developed drivers across series.
Its later history is a story of change. The 2023 rebrand to Rodin Carlin, the Carlins' departure later that year and the renaming to Rodin Motorsport mark a new chapter, but the team's record in junior racing remains its most important legacy. Its record shows how a single team can connect British junior racing to the highest level of the sport.
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