One of the flashes that define Christian Costoya (Silleda, Pontevedra, 15 years old) is the question he asked his father, Manuel, every time he faced a kart racing weekend in Galicia or Portugal. “Who is the fastest driver?” he asked. … the tender infant with abundant hair with incorporated bangs. When his father gave him the name of the target, Christian set off in pursuit, the knife between his teeth. This is how he arrived at the McLaren academy as he could have arrived at any other major team, an essential career to dream of Formula 1.
Costoya’s story is no different from that of many pilots who have navigated these waters. Son and nephew of former karting drivers in Galicia, little Christian has immersed himself in the familiar atmosphere since his childhood: valves, tires, fuel, lap time…
Nothing that Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz, Jaime Alguersuari, Roberto Merhi and other Spanish passengers who drove in Formula 1 could not digest. A juvenile, child and adolescent life built on weekends with vans or station wagons to go to kart races in any territory.
Christian Costoya started driving karts shortly after learning to walk. At the age of three, his father, passionate about this sport, put him in his first motor vehicle. He traveled many kilometers on the boat owned by the family in Pontevedra city of Silleda, where former Real Madrid footballer Joselu Mato also grew up.
his father I tied him with a rope and he ran at the same pace as the kart to prevent an accident from happening to the child. But Christian loved that feeling of speed that car racing enthusiasts love so much.
From there to the competition, as is the norm in this sport which requires great financial support. Costoya won his first race in the Galician championship at the age of five, when helmets in his size did not yet exist. There was no exact protection for his skull or a championship in Spain for someone so precocious.
Racing in our country required a minimum age of six years and the Costoya family traveled to neighboring Portugal, where the requirement was five years, to step on the accelerator during testing at the circuits of Braga, Viseu and the towns near Porto.
With Todt’s son
Halfway between the national karting championships in Portugal and later in Spain, Christian Costoya was honing his skills behind the wheel and polishing kinks alongside other drivers who are about to make their name and who we will hear from in the future. Author of numerous victories in the karts in Spaintook the plunge towards European competitions and took on his first major challenge when he was only eight years old, during the World Cup in Brazil.
Having become a promise of Spanish motorsport, Costoya joined one of the most powerful representatives of this sport, All Road Management, the representation company of Nicolas Todt, the son of Jean Todt, former general manager of Ferrari during the glorious era of Michael Schumacher and former president of the International Federation (FIA).
Many high-level pilots have passed through the Todt agency. Felipe Massa, in the best moment of his career, Pastor Maldonado, winner of an incredible race in Montmeló with the Williams, or Daniil Kvyat, one of the many drivers who have traveled the Toro Rosso-Red Bull transfer in Verstappen’s shadow over the last decade. Charles Leclerc is the most famous current Ferrari driver.
The young driver works with Formula Medicine to improve his mental and physical preparation
Christian Costoya is in the hands of a powerful F1 agent and has also started working with Formula Medicine, a project founded in 1994 by Italian doctor Riccardo Ceccarelli. It is a sports medicine center intended for the physical and especially mental training of pilots. Since its creation, it has collaborated with pilots such as Jarno Trulli, Robert Kubica or Charles Leclerc.
The young champion’s project was karting world vice-champion in 2023 and European champion in 2025. He is number one in the FIA world rankings in the kart category and was signed by McLaren for its “Young Drivers Program”, with which he will begin filming in F4 at Yas Marina (Abu Dhabi).
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