Studying At Full Throttle
My Country Produces Racing Drivers At A Rate That Defies Logic, Geography, And Economics. Will I Simply Be The Next Name On A Long Statistical List - Or Something Else Entirely?
THERE IS A CERTAIN HOUR in Monaco - after the sun has slipped behind the hills of the Tête de Chien, and before the harbor fully settles - when the Principality seems to remember itself. Engines once screamed here. Legends once walked these pavements quietly, anonymously, long before the world learned their names. Living here, you feel that memory in the air. And when a young Brazilian driver chooses Monaco as home, the city, almost imperceptibly, pays attention.
It does so with skepticism, and I understand why. Monaco has seen ambition arrive loudly and vanish just as quickly. But it has also learned to recognize patterns. One of them remains impossible to ignore. My country, improbably and persistently, produces racing drivers at a rate that defies logic, geography, and economics. Even I find myself wondering - only half in jest - what exactly is in the water back home.
The numbers alone are sobering. My country has eight Formula One World Championships, placing it among the top three nations in Formula One history, alongside Britain and Germany. For a nation without Europe’s infrastructure or funding pipelines, that statistic still feels slightly unreal. Those titles belong to different eras and different temperaments: Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet, and Ayrton Senna - three drivers, eight titles, three completely distinct philosophies of speed.
And the story does not stop with Formula One. In American open-wheel racing, drivers from my country have left fingerprints everywhere - most vividly at the Indianapolis 500, where Brazilians have claimed eight victories across generations: Emerson Fittipaldi in 1989 and 1993; Hélio Castroneves in 2001, 2002, 2009, and again in 2021; Gil de Ferran in 2003; and Tony Kanaan in 2013. Add to that other major achievements across endurance and touring-car racing - drivers like Augusto Farfus, a winner at Le Mans and Daytona and a constant presence at the highest level of GT competition - and the picture becomes broader, richer, and harder to dismiss.
Do I draw inspiration from all of that? Absolutely - and very consciously so. It does not intimidate me. It never has. If anything, it fuels my appetite. Those victories don’t feel like a weight to carry; they feel like proof of concept. Evidence that drivers from my country don’t belong to a single era or a single discipline. They adapt. They endure. They win - on ovals, on street circuits, in single-seaters, in endurance cars. I don’t hear those names as expectations. I hear them as encouragement. A quiet insistence that excellence, where I come from, is not an exception but a tradition - one I hope to honor in my own way, in my own time.
When I quietly settled in Monaco with my parents, there were no headlines. That was never the point. Curiosity, if anything, followed - not the loud kind, but the watchful type this place is known for.
In my country, giving nicknames is almost instinctive. It’s a tender, uncomplicated way of calling someone you like - a small sign of closeness. People around me call me GUEL. It’s informal, natural, and I like that. It reminds me that this journey is still in motion, still human. My racing story did not begin here, but far from the harbor and the hills - in Miami, on karting circuits where patience is learned the hard way and composure is non-negotiable. Even then, I was never the most aggressive driver. Speed, for me, has always felt like something to be negotiated rather than imposed.
Racing with established karting teams across the United States, I moved through categories step by step, learning on circuits that punish impatience. Those years shaped how I drive and how I think. They taught me how to lose constructively, how to wait, and how to look beyond the next race weekend. Progress there is earned slowly, and I’m grateful for that education.
As competition intensified, I tried to remain deliberate. I have always believed urgency is overrated. Direction matters more. Listening matters more. Improvement is rarely loud. Eventually, Europe became unavoidable. The center of gravity in this sport still lives here, and Monaco sits close enough to feel it every day.
Moving here was strategic, but also symbolic. Drivers from my country I grew up admiring chose these same streets to refine themselves. In Monaco, Formula One is not an aspiration - it is part of the city’s infrastructure, part of its rhythm. You feel it when you train, when you walk, when you think.
The transition from karting to single-seaters was humbling. Formula 4 does not allow shortcuts. It demands collaboration, data literacy, mechanical understanding, and patience. I had to relearn the language of racing - downforce, tire degradation, race craft - and I embraced that process. My time in Formula 4 has been about learning without announcing it, about resilience rather than noise.
My days often start above Port Hercule, when the yachts are still and the city feels briefly private. From the switchbacks climbing toward La Turbie, to quiet training sessions between travel weeks, Monaco has a way of stripping ambition of ornament. What remains must be serious.
I should add this: I’m not a big writer. My real passion is driving. But I’ve been having fun putting these thoughts down for The Monegasque™, a magazine rooted in our community and its conversations.
Many drivers have passed through its pages and left their mark - drivers like Oscar Piastri and Maro Engel - and it feels natural, even grounding, to be part of that continuum while my own story is still being written.
The next step places me firmly on the European single-seater ladder. Beginning my Formula 3 journey within the FREC & FRMET structure is not a leap - it is a continuation. At this level, opportunities reflect trust earned over time: in adaptability, intelligence, and consistency.
Away from the circuit, I balance racing with academics at the International School of Monaco (ISM). That balance matters. Modern drivers are expected to think as clearly as they drive - to communicate, to analyze, to endure. ISM offers a flexible, forward-thinking approach. It allows me to navigate the demands of a rigorous education while managing international competition, travel, and training. The school’s understanding of my unique journey ensures that neither my academic growth nor my athletic pursuit is compromised.
And so the question returns, floating through the Principality as evening settles in. Another Brazilian. Another young driver. Another life unfolding between sea and stone. Why does my country keep producing this kind of relationship with speed, generation after generation?
I do not know if I’m simply the next name on a long statistical list - or something else entirely. What I do know is that Monaco is in no rush to decide. And neither am I.
But in a city where Senna is remembered not as a statue, but as a presence, even the unanswered question carries electricity.
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