- The IndyCar 2024 USF Pro 2000 and 2023 USF2000 Vice-Champion, and the 2022 USF Junior Championship’s third-placed driver, has already amassed an impressive tally of victories and podiums in multiple single-seater championships.
- 2025 will be the Gulfport, Florida native’s first full season racing in Europe after an impressive debut in six GB3 rounds in 2024.
- Hitech will field another exciting three-driver line-up, following a successful 2024 campaign which saw the team fighting for both GB3 titles.
2 October 2024, Silverstone, UK – Hitech GP is pleased to announce that Nikita Johnson will race for the team in the 2025 GB3 Championship. The eight-round, 24-race series gets underway in April, with six of the rounds set to take place at current Formula One venues.
Nikita was one of the most exciting new talents to join the series in 2024, arriving part-way through the season when he had reached his 16th birthday, despite already being a multiple race winner on the IndyCar support bill. He scored a maiden victory in Zandvoort, becoming the youngest-ever race winner in GB3. Concurrently, Nikita became the USF Pro 2000 series Vice-Champion as part of a dual programme in the USA and the UK/Europe, achieving nine wins, 10 podiums, seven pole positions, nine fastest laps, and eight most laps led.
At the age of just 15, he became 2023 USF2000 Vice-Champion, claiming eight podiums including a victory in the opening round in his hometown of St Petersburg, Florida. While finishing this campaign, Nikita also made an instant impression across the final five races in the top-tier USF Pro 2000 Championship with a win at the Circuit of The Americas, another victory at Portland, and two further podium finishes. With the COTA win, he became the youngest race-winner in the series’ history. Nikita is the only driver to win at all three levels of the USF Pro Championships and also the youngest race winner in history in each series.
At the age of 13, Nikita won the 2022 YACademy Winter Series F4 title with three wins from six races and two additional podium finishes. He added to this successful winter campaign with third place in the 2022 USF Juniors Championship, achieving three victories, seven further podiums, five poles, and five fastest laps, and he became the youngest-ever winner at Road America. In his debut in USF2000 at Road America that same year, he was placed second at Portland.
With a victory in the YACademy series at the start of 2021, he became the youngest-ever winner of a race for contemporary F4 machinery at just 12 years old.
Nikita Johnson commented: “I want to thank my management team of my father, Obie Johnson, and Harry Soden at Infinity Sports Management for working with Hitech GP to place me in this top-tier team. They have demonstrated the ability to develop young drivers, such as George Russell, and I am focused on working with the team to advance.”
Hitech GP’s GB3 Championship Team Manager, Phil Blow, added: “As ever in racing, no sooner has one season ended than another begins, and we’re excited to look to our driver line-up for 2025.
“We welcome Nikita to the team, a driver who is still only 16 years of age but already brings a wealth of experience in single-seater racing. I’m sure he will make a significant contribution to another strong season for Hitech in GB3.”
In addition to his success in single-seaters, Nikita was crowned the 2021 Legends Road Course World Champion and finished third in the Legends Asphalt Oval USA National Championship. In 2020, Nikita was Vice Champion in Legends Dirt USA Nationals.
Prior to that, in karting, Nikita secured titles in the National, Midwest and Florida Micro-ROK Championships in 2016. He won the Florida Winter Tour Mini-ROK Ocala Gran Prix in the following season and raced in WSK in Europe for two seasons. In 2018, he won the Ocala Grand Prix Junior Championship and a paid university scholarship before moving into car racing.
