10 Things We Learned from 2025 Formula DRIFT Salt Lake City

James Deane has now amassed 5 Formula DRIFT Championships in his career (2017-2019, 2024, 2025), the most by any driver. By clinching it during Round 7, Deane has now claimed a Championship in the shortest amount of time during FD's 8 event format thanks in part to his AutoZone Mustang RTR Spec 5-FD's performance this season. Deane currently leads the season by 80 points heading into the final round at Long Beach in October. 

Cody Buchanan has always had an entertaining presence off track in his interviews, but this weekend he made his presence well known on track as well. Entering into Round 4 of the Formula DRIFT Link Engine Management PROSPEC series Buchanan was sitting in 4th place, just a mere 20 points behind the three-way tie for first place with Nate Chen, Dmytriy Brutskiy, and Cole Richards. However, the road to victory for Buchanan seemed like a stretch with the odds of claiming a championship around 5%. Despite the odds, Buchanan managed to pull off his first Formula DRIFT podium appearance, first win, and first Championship title. Chen and Brutskiy would round out the rest of the championship podium with Chen taking second and Brutskiy claiming third. 

Fredric Aasbø came into Round 7 in second place, 40 points behind James Deane. With a shot still at the Championship still in sight, Aasbø was looking poised to gain ground this round. However, for the second event in a row, Aasbø would go out in his Top 32 battle leaving him pointless again, only to fall down to 4th place in the season standings. Aasbø is currently tied with Adam LZ with 180 points, so he still has a chance at landing on the podium for the season pending a good finish in Long Beach next month.

Event though James Deane has claimed the top spot for the season, Matt Field, Adam LZ, Fredric Aasbø, and Hiroya Minowa all have a pretty good shot at claiming second place, but we know that doesn't always mean it's guaranteed. Field leads the pack with 190 points, while LZ and Aasbø are tied with 180 points, and Minowa rounds out the pack with 150 points. Depending on how the bracket falls, the scenarios might be easier for some over others, but as we saw in the final PROSPEC round in Utah, anything is possible and Round 8 is going to be an exciting one. 

In case you missed watching this epic battle live or even on social media the last few days (not sure how that is even possible), here's another chance for you to see how their battle "stacked" up. 

What's equally impressive is this was the first run of their One More Time battle and both drivers' teams managed to get the cars repaired in time and back to the line to complete the second run of the battle. Field would eventually get the win. 

Nick Noback had a couple great battles this weekend against the top two drivers in points this season coming into the event. In Top 32, Noback battled Fredric Aasbø and remained glued to his door in his chase run helping get him the win. In Top 16, Noback would battle James Deane and narrowly lose his battle to the machine. We can't wait to see if Noback takes this steam and improves on it at the newly design Long Beach course to finish out on top like he did in 2023 at Irwindale. 

Trenton Beechum looked great throughout practice and continued that driving into the competition. For the last 3 seasons, Utah has managed to be the place where Beechum has performed the best. Beechum finished 6th in 2023, 3rd in 2024, and 8th just last weekend. We're not sure what it is that favors his driving style, but hopefully he can figure it out and replicate these performances next month in Long Beach.

Jack Shanahan won his Top 32 match against Daniel Stuke, but would end up going out in his Top 16 battle against Field. However, with fellow rookies Connor O'Sullivan and Tommy Lemaire both losing their Top 32 battles, Shanahan ended up adding 10 points to the Rookie of the Year (ROTY) Championship going into the final round next month. At this point, Shanahan (86 pts) now has a 34 point lead over second place O'Sullivan (52 pts). 

There's been a few layout changes to the Salt Lake City round every year since 2022, but there is no denying that this year's event might have been the most exciting. From the constant "what-ifs" for the seven drivers that had a chance at the PROSPEC Championship to the insanely close battles and upsets in PRO, there was non-stop excitement all weekend. 

Call it what you will; the bubble, the imaginary wall, or the line that ended 3 drivers weekends early. Whatever we call it, it made for great tandems in Utah. While we didn't care for the placement of the lead / chase cars on grid (we would have preferred them flipped), the bubble provided the chase drivers a better opportunity to get in the pocket after initiation by knowing how the lead driver was going to initiate, setting them up for success. 

Some of the comments online suggested that Formula DRIFT was limiting creative style for the lead drivers, but who really wants to see 100+ foot handbrake pulls to start off the run? While the bubble forced lead drivers to perform a weight transfer initiation, it allowed the chase car the opportunity to either follow or perform a straight line initiation (as they were allowed to drive across the bubble) to quickly gain proximity. It'll be interesting to see if they use it at all the tracks moving forward now or just reserve it for Utah.