Laurens van Hoepen on TRIDENT’s bright start to 2026

A podium finish to kick off the 2026 season was a big milestone for Laurens van Hoepen. He achieved his maiden visit to the podium in Melbourne’s Feature Race and returned TRIDENT to the rostrum for the first time since 2024.

It kicked off what the Dutch driver believes can be a positive campaign. He spoke about the work that had gone into the new season, with his appearances for the team last year cutting down on learning time and providing a headstart for the 2026 campaign.

“I think it was extremely useful,” he explained. “I learned so much in those couple of races. We did a lot of things like the pitstops, which at that point were a completely new thing for me, but then also the race itself, the starts are different.

“It’s just a lot of things that are different that are super useful to have experienced already before we actually really started in Melbourne.”

Melbourne brought great results for both team and driver, and there’s confidence in both camps about what is possible this season.

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TRIDENT have said a lot of work has gone into the new campaign behind-the-scenes, analysing where the team can improve and the fruits of their labours were on show in Melbourne on Sunday.

Van Hoepen says that he’s pleased that their work paid off at the first time of asking, but knows that they still need to maintain their upward trajectory to achieve similar results later this year.

“I think we did a really good job, the team and I. I think we did so many laps to really prepare for this year and it's looking promising from what we found out and what we've done.

“It was really a good step in the right direction. There’s so much stuff that we tested during the actual pre-season test, because in the end that's what it's for. It's not for doing the quickest time, but to learn as much as possible.

“And I think we made good use of that. So, I think we can continue to build on what we've learned.”

The TRIDENT driver explained what he’d done over the winter to prepare for his first full F2 season, with sim work crucial to the positive start he and the team has made.

He added that the goals in the early part of the season is to maximise results, something he was able to do at the first time of asking in Australia to open his 2026 account.

“I've done a lot of sim, of course, to prepare the season, but I've also been in the gym a lot and just training a lot just to make sure I'm ready for this bigger car and just that everything is ready to go for the season. We've done a lot of prep with TRIDENT as well, a lot of meetings and mainly sim.

“It's difficult to put a number on it, but I would say when I jump out of the car, being happy with the job that I've done so that I really know, okay, this was the maximum that was in it.

“If that's P8, on some days I have to finish P8. If that's P1 on other days, I have to finish P1. That's how it is and that’s the goal.”