From his father’s first “let’s go karting” at Granja Viana, through the Rotax Grand Finals in Bahrain and a season as a Parolin factory driver: the 15-
\nyear-old from S\u00e3o Paulo talks about the jump to Formula 4, five Copa S\u00e3o Paulo titles, an uphill European season and the F1 dream that still motivates him every day<\/p>\n
“Dad, I want to be a Formula 1 driver.” Eduardo Salamonde, Dudu to everyone, was eight years old. A Grand Prix was on TV, his brother was watching it, and a few minutes were all it took. He remembers the moment really well, and he is keen to correct the version that has been told so far: it wasn’t his brother he said it to. “I went straight to my dad.” His father was stunned. “I think he wasn’t expecting his son to suddenly tell him that he wanted to become a racing driver.” Once the surprise had passed, the answer was disarmingly simple: “Okay, son, then let’s go karting.” And that’s exactly what they did.
\nSeven years have gone by since that day in S\u00e3o Paulo. Dudu turned fifteen in July. Along the way he has collected five Copa S\u00e3o Paulo titles and a Brazilian Rotax championship, represented his country at a world final, raced a full European season as a Parolin factory driver and, in August, closed the book on karting. Now he drives a Formula 4 car. He is changing sport in the middle of his teenage years, and he talks about it with the calm of someone who knows exactly why he is doing it.<\/p>\n
A SECOND HOME<\/strong> A DREAM IN BAHRAIN<\/strong> LIFE AS A FACTORY DRIVER<\/strong> AN UPHILL SEASON<\/strong> Away from the track, the season was a life lived out of a suitcase. Italy, Spain, Germany and Sweden depending on the races, with an Airbnb near the circuit as a base. Up very early, a good breakfast, the whole day at the track, then a shower, dinner and an early night, “because the next morning we’d do it all again”. There is little free time left. The hardest part was homesickness: “I missed my family, my friends and my normal life in Brazil.” Calls home helped, telling the people far away about his day. Language was never a problem, his English is good. And the food? “You just adapt!”<\/p>\n THE LAST KARTING WEEKEND<\/strong> A DIFFERENT SPORT<\/strong> THE FLAG AND THE DREAM<\/strong> April 2026 brought the signing with Minardi Management powered by DAG. The biggest change, he says, has been learning to handle everything around a racing career in a much more professional way. “When you start working with people like that, you see more opportunities opening up, you meet more people and you start feeling that your dreams are becoming more real.” From his father’s first “let’s go karting” at Granja Viana, through the Rotax Grand Finals in Bahrain and a season as a Parolin factory driver: the 15- year-old from S\u00e3o Paulo talks about the jump to Formula 4, five Copa S\u00e3o Paulo titles, an uphill European season and the F1 dream that still motivates him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":38812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nFor Dudu, karting has a precise address: the Kart\u00f3dromo da Granja Viana in Cotia, on the edge of S\u00e3o Paulo. That is where he grew up, with Walter Travaglini’s TR3 team and his mechanic Anselmo Terel, who followed him through all his Brazilian years, from the junior classes upwards. “Granja Viana really was my second home. I spent so much time there, and Walter and Anselmo basically taught me everything about becoming a racing driver.”
\nEverything covers a lot of ground: how to race, how to understand the kart, how to overtake, how to think during a race and how to organise it all in your head while driving.
\n“They didn’t just teach me how to be fast. They taught me how to become a complete driver.” From those seasons he still carries a rule he repeats like a workshop motto: “The driver who makes the fewest mistakes is the one who wins the race.” For a kid who races to go fast, that is not an obvious lesson. “Racing isn’t just about being the fastest. It’s also about being consistent and making the right decisions.”
\nGranja Viana gave him his Copa S\u00e3o Paulo titles, three in 2022 and then one a year in 2024 and 2025 in Rotax J\u00fanior Max, the same class in which he won the Brazilian championship in 2024. Behind every trip there has always been his family. “My parents have supported me since the beginning and have made huge efforts to help me follow my dream. I’m extremely grateful for everything they’ve done for me.” A piece of home is among his sponsors too: Casa Bar\u00f4, one of his long-standing partners, is the family business, “so having them among my partners makes it even more special”. In Europe, he adds, he has never travelled alone. Someone from the family is always with him.<\/p>\n
\nThe 2025 Copa S\u00e3o Paulo title was worth more than a trophy. It carried the only Brazilian ticket to the Rotax Grand Finals, the world final held in Bahrain at the end of the year, and Dudu arrived there as the only Brazilian in a 72-driver J\u00fanior Max field. “Just being at the Rotax Grand Finals was already something really special for me. It had always been a dream, and representing Brazil at a World Final was a huge privilege.”
\nThe week soon got complicated. “We were fast, but my qualifying lap was deleted because of track limits.” Then came contact in the first heat, some places recovered in the following races and a mechanical problem that ended his prefinal. It was not the result he wanted, “especially because I knew we had the pace to achieve more”. Today he files it away with the composure of someone who has already made peace with it: “That’s racing. Sometimes things happen that are outside your control, and you have to deal with them.” What stayed with him is an experience he calls incredible and a lesson that would prove useful a few months later in Europe: keep fighting even when things aren’t going your way.<\/p>\n
\nIn January 2026, aged fourteen, Dudu became a Parolin factory driver in the OK class, based at the team’s headquarters in the province of Vicenza. Back then he spoke of honour and responsibility, and he still does. What he hadn’t said was how much he enjoyed the day-to-day life. “But honestly, I really loved the routine.”
\nHe walks through it step by step. Arrive at the circuit, talk to the mechanic, check the telemetry, discuss track conditions with his teammates, head out for practice. After every session, back to work on the kart, then sitting down with the engineer to analyse the data and write down everything that needed improving. “That was actually one of the biggest things I learned at Parolin: every time you finish a session, you need to analyze what happened and write down what you can improve.” It was a demanding environment, with high expectations for anyone carrying the colours of such a big team. He remembers it as a school: “That routine made me a much more mature, confident and professional driver.”<\/p>\n
\nThe European calendar didn’t give him much. Penalties at La Conca, the Valencia Super Heat missed by three points, a crash and an engine failure at M\u00fclsen. In between, almost every weekend, a comeback of ten places or more. “There were weekends when we had really good pace, but the results didn’t show it because of incidents, penalties or mechanical problems.” About M\u00fclsen he also tells his own share of the story, without beating around the bush: “We were very competitive during testing, but I made a mistake in qualifying, and I took responsibility for that.”
\nThe frustration is there and he doesn’t hide it. His way of handling it is to focus on what he can control. “If something goes wrong, you still have to go back out there and give your best.” By the end of the season, he says, he felt like a much better driver, even when the results didn’t always reflect the potential.
\nIt was at M\u00fclsen, on a track he had discovered only a week earlier, that he set the fastest time in a wet official test session, and not by chance: “I really enjoy racing in the rain. Honestly, I think it’s even more fun than racing in dry conditions!” Given the choice, he would probably take the wet race. The reason is almost technical: with grip changing all the time, everyone has to adapt to what’s happening on track, and “in the rain, the differences between the karts can become smaller, so I feel that the driver’s ability to adapt becomes even more important”.<\/p>\n
\nBetween late July and early August, at Kristianstad in Sweden, Dudu raced his last karting events: first Champions of the Future, then the European Championship. The decision had taken shape once he felt he had become “the driver I needed to be before stepping into single-seaters”. It took international racing, very strong rivals, pressure, full grids and tough weekends. “I felt I’d gained the experience and maturity I needed, and that the next step in my development had to be Formula 4.”
\nHe remembers that final weekend as a happy one. “I felt like I was still improving, and at the same time, I knew I was closing an important chapter of my life.” He enjoyed every moment of it, knowing it would be his last time racing a kart competitively.<\/p>\n
\nHe had already tried single-seaters in Brazil, at Velocitta and Interlagos, then in Italy at Varano. September brought Formula 4 tests at Cremona, Mugello and Cervesina. The first feeling was one of surprise. “It’s almost like a completely different sport!” The way you accelerate and steer changes, the driving position changes, even what you can see from the cockpit. The hardest habit to break was braking: “The way you use the brakes in a kart is very different from how you brake in Formula 4. You have to adapt your technique, and that takes time.” That, he adds, is also what makes the transition exciting: you are learning something completely new. In a car, the relationship with the engineer becomes central, and Dudu has his own way of explaining how it is built. Laps, laps and more laps, until you understand how the car reacts under braking, through corners and on acceleration. “I always say you become more of a friend with the car!” Only then can you explain to your engineer what is happening and what you are feeling. Telemetry, for that matter, was something he had already got used to at Parolin.
\nPart of his preparation goes through the simulator. Before a new circuit, Dudu spends a long time on iRacing, studying the racing line, braking points, gears and even the surroundings of the track, to “break the ice” before he gets there for real. He is clear about its limits: “When you’re inside a real car, you actually feel all the forces acting on your body.”
\nThe other work is on body and mind, with Nuno Cobra J\u00fanior, who has been following him since around 2024. From him Dudu has learned breathing and concentration techniques that have now become a ritual: before getting into the kart or the car, he focuses on his breathing and visualises what he needs to do. Then there is physical training, calisthenics included, which has grown more important with every step up.
\n“Every step demands more from you, both physically and mentally, and Nuno has been fundamental in helping me prepare for those challenges.”<\/p>\n
\nHe holds Brazilian, Portuguese and American passports, but he races for Brazil, and to him that is no detail. “I’m representing the country where I was born, the people I grew up around and everyone back home who supports me.” S\u00e3o Paulo is also Ayrton Senna’s city, and Senna died seventeen years before Dudu was born. “I think almost every racing driver looks up to him in some way.” What he admires in Senna is his determination, his focus, his constant drive to improve and the pride with which he carried Brazil’s colours. “For me, he’s an inspiration not only as a racing driver but also as an athlete and as a person.”<\/p>\n
\nThe next step is his first full season in Formula 4. Dudu knows the jump is big and that adapting takes time, but he has no intention of spending a year just gaining experience.
\n“I’m a racing driver, and I always want to be competitive. I don’t want to spend a whole season just getting used to the car.” The targets will be set with his management and the team he will race with, “realistic but ambitious”. Success, for him, will mean making big progress and becoming confident and competitive in Formula 4.
\nAnd Formula 1? “Formula 1 is my dream. It’s what I work for every single day, and it’s where I want to be. And I really believe I’m going to get there.” To keep it from weighing him down, he breaks the road into days. “Today, I do my best. Tomorrow, I’ll do my best again. And the day after that, the same thing.”
\nThat leaves one question: what would he tell the eight-year-old boy in front of the TV? He likes the question. He would tell him never to give up, to do his best every day, not to let negative thoughts or difficult moments get in his way, because challenges will come.
\nAbove all, never to lose the excitement of that day, when he watched Formula 1 and decided what he wanted to do. “Because that dream is what started everything, and it’s still what motivates me every single day.”
\nBack then, his father needed just one sentence. Seven years later karting is a closed chapter and a Formula 4 car lies ahead. The invitation, though, is still the same: let’s go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"