Bent Viscaal

Bent Max Calvin Viscaal (born 18 September 1999 in Almelo) is a Dutch racing driver who last competed in the European Le Mans Series. He is the series's 2022 Rookie of the Year.

Viscaal is the runner-up of the 2018 Euroformula Open Championship as well as the 2017 F4 Spanish Championship. Viscaal resides in a small Dutch town called Albergen.^[1][2]

Viscaal made his motor racing debut in karting in 2010 in the Dutch Mini Juniors Championship. In 2011, he became champion in the Mini Juniors class of the Euro Wintercup, and in 2012, he finished second in the Dutch KF3 Championship. From that season on, he also participated in foreign races, especially in Germany. In 2014, he made his debut in international karting in the European KF Junior Championship. In 2015, he became champion in the German Junior Championship. In 2016, he drove his last season in karts, in which he finished sixth in the OK class of the European Championship.

In 2017, Viscaal made the switch to formula racing and made his debut in Formula 4 in both the SMP and Spanish Formula 4 Championships for MP Motorsport.^[3][4] In the SMP championship, he won four races at the Ahvenisto Race Circuit, the Auto24ring and the TT Circuit Assen (twice), finishing second in the final standings with 218 points behind Christian Lundgaard. In the Spanish championship, he won five races at the Circuito de Navarra, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the Circuit Paul Armagnac (twice) and the Autódromo do Estoril, yet again finishing second in this championship behind Lundgaard with a 266 points deficit.^[5]

In 2018, Viscaal switched to the Euroformula Open Championship to make his Formula 3 debut for the Teo Martín Motorsport team.^[6] In a season dominated by Felipe Drugovich, he won a race at Silverstone and finished on the podium in eleven other races, finishing second behind Drugovich with 246 points. He did win the rookie championship with fourteen wins, one second place and one retirement in sixteen races. The Euroformula Open also hosted the Spanish Formula 3 championship, in which Viscaal was also second behind Drugovich with five second places.^[7]

In 2019, Viscaal switched to the new FIA Formula 3 Championship, where he raced for the HWA Racelab team.^[8] He had a reasonable debut season, but only managed to score a fifth place at the Circuit Paul Ricard. With ten points, he finished fifteenth in the championship. At the end of the year, he drove in a race weekend of the MRF Challenge at the Bahrain International Circuit, winning two of the four races and finishing on the podium in another.^[9]

In 2020, Viscaal remained in FIA F3, but this time with MP Motorsport. At the Hungaroring he earned his first podium finish after a time penalty from Logan Sargeant.^[10] In the second race of this weekend, he originally took victory, but after two time penalties of five seconds each and a late safety car phase, he was classified seventeenth in the final results.^[11] At Silverstone, Viscaal scored his first victory after a last-lap battle with Lirim Zendeli.^[12] With 40 points, he finished thirteenth in the final standings.^[13]

In 2021, Viscaal switched to the Formula 2 Championship with Trident, partnering Marino Sato.^[14][15] He scored his first points in round three at the Baku Street Circuit where he finished fourth, giving Trident their best race finish in the modern F2 era.^[16] Following a point-less round at Silverstone Viscaal finished seventh after having started from 18th in a chaotic first sprint race at Monza, thus propelling him to fourth on the starting grid for the second race. He managed to move up to second by the checkered flag and scored his first ever Formula 2 podium, which was also Trident's first in the FIA Formula 2 era.^[17] The following round at the Sochi Autodrom Viscaal was forced to retire in both races after collisions in the opening laps. After a two-month break Viscaal returned to race in the final two rounds of the series. Having stated that the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, which hosted the penultimate round of the season, was "[...] one of the best tracks [he'd] ever driven",^[18] Viscaal finished the sprint race in ninth place and ended race 2 in second place.^[19] Viscaal left Trident and the series following the season.

For 2022, Viscaal switched to endurance racing, joining Algarve Pro Racing in the LMP2 class of the European Le Mans Series.^[20][21] Driving alongside Sophia Flörsch in an all-silver-ranked lineup, Viscaal finished second in his debut race at Le Castellet, having fended off Job van Uitert in the closing stages.^[22] The duo then narrowly missed out on another podium at Imola due to a badly-timed full-course yellow period and a puncture.^[23] Having made his FIA World Endurance Championship debut at Spa for ARC Bratislava, Viscaal entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the team.^[24][25] Having briefly held the LMP2 Pro-Am subclass lead during the night, the team ended up sixth in the subclass.^[26][27] Despite struggling to attain high results in the latter half of the ELMS campaign, Viscaal was named Rookie of the Year at the end of the season.^[28][29] He also drove for Prema Racing at the FIA WEC post-season test.^[30] Following the season, Viscaal's driver rating was upgraded to FIA Gold Categorisation.^[31]

In 2023, Viscaal participated in the FIA World Endurance Championship with Prema, driving the No. 9 alongside silver-ranked Filip Ugran and the rotating pair of Juan Manuel Correa and Andrea Caldarelli.^[32] The lineup started by finishing eighth at Sebring and sixth at Portimão, before claiming fourth at Spa.^[33][34][35] Viscaal notably caused a collision which ended Gabriel Aubry's race at Monza, following which he apologised to Aubry's team, Vector Sport.^[36] The team concluded the season, in which they scored points in every race, with a fourth place at Bahrain.^[37] The No. 9 crew finished ninth in the standings, narrowly behind the sister No. 63 entry.^[38] During the year, Viscaal also made stand-in appearances in the ELMS: he first replaced Jack Hawksworth at Algarve Pro for the Aragón and Spa rounds, then drove for Proton Competition at the final weekend in the Algarvein place of Gianmaria Bruni.^[39][40]

Viscaal returned to the ELMS on a full-time basis in 2024, partnering René Binder and bronze-ranked Giorgio Roda at Proton Competition in the LMP2 Pro-Am class.^[41] Having taken fifth at Barcelona, the trio finished second in class at Le Castellet.^[42] After racing at Le Mans alongside Macéo Capietto and Jonas Ried, Viscaal and his ELMS teammates suffered a setback at Imola, finishing last in class after being run off into the gravel by another car.^[43][44] They bounced back by taking second at Spa and third at Mugello, keeping themselves in mathematical contention for the title going into the season finale.^[45][46][47] Despite not winning the title, they did win the race, as Viscaal passed the fuel-saving Alex Quinn on the final lap.^[48] This earned Viscaal and his teammates third in the Pro-Am class standings.^[49]

In May, it was announced that Viscaal would be making his GTP debut in the IMSA SportsCar Championship at Laguna Seca, driving a Proton-fielded Porsche 963 with Gianmaria Bruni.^[50] He scored a best finish of fifth on two occasions.

In 2025, Viscaal once again drove for Proton in the Pro-Am class of the ELMS.^[51] Fourth at Barcelona preceded another fourth in Le Castellet, where the team's chances of victory were scuppered by a drive-through penalty.^[52][53] After a fight between Viscaal and Louis Delétraz in the final hour of the Imola event, the former had to settle for second.^[54] This ended up being Proton's only podium of the campaign, as they retired at Silverstone due to a multi-car collision with Roda at the wheel, placed sixth at Spa, and fourth at Portimão; they ended up fifth in the standings.^{[55][56][57][58]} Viscaal also raced alongside Binder and Roda at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where they finished sixth in LMP2 and third in the Pro-Am subclass.^[59]

As of 2026, Viscaal is the head of procurement at his family's car sales company, Viscaal Fahrzeuggrosshandel GmbH.^[60]

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate points for the fastest lap of top ten finishers)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate points for the fastest lap of top ten finishers)

^† Driver did not finish the race, but was classified as he completed over 90% of the race distance.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

• Official website
• Bent Viscaal career summary at DriverDB.com