Christian Mansell opens up on ADHD diagnosis after F2 withdrawal — and maps a new route back
Christian Mansell has put words to a silence that confused a lot of people this year. The Australian, who was set to make his full-time Formula 2 debut in 2025 with Rodin, withdrew on the eve of the season and vanished from the grid just as his profile was taking off. Now he’s explained why.
In a candid message to fans, Mansell called 2025 “an absolute write-off of a year,” revealing he was diagnosed with ADHD after a long, private struggle with his mental health.
“I’ve never been so tested in all my life,” he wrote. “This year I was diagnosed with ADHD, something that I later found ran my entire life since I was around 6 years old.” Mansell added that he’d always felt “off, different,” with unpredictable emotions and difficulty focusing — feelings that finally had a name once he was evaluated. The undiagnosed years, he admitted, “hasn’t helped me in the slightest,” and by the start of the year he’d “found myself in a pretty dark place.”
The timing explains a lot. Mansell was coming off a strong 2024 Formula 3 campaign that made him a fan favourite — quick on track, quick with a quip online — and was earmarked to climb straight into F2. He completed pre-season running with Rodin and was due to start his campaign on home soil in Melbourne, only to step away just before lights out. From the outside, it was abrupt. From the inside, as he describes it now, it was necessary.
He didn’t disappear entirely. Mansell found his way back into a cockpit at Pembrey in Wales later in the year — a low-key reset after months of recalibration. And as 2026 rolls into view, the 20-year-old (21 next month) isn’t trying to force himself back into a single-seater pressure cooker. He’s recalibrating the route as well as the rhythm.
That means GT racing, with Team Motopark, starting with the 6 Hours of Abu Dhabi next week. It’s a smart pivot: competitive mileage without the relentless treadmill of the F2 calendar, and a chance to rebuild confidence against a different kind of challenge. Motopark know how to nurture young drivers; Mansell knows how to race. The rest can come with time.
“2026 is a year for me that signifies change,” he said. “I’ve changed the way my brain works, I’ve changed my relationship with mental health and have it well within my grasp. And I have a completely different view on life and why it’s so worth living for.”
There’s something quietly significant about that. Motorsport still asks its prospects to be bulletproof at 18, polished at 20 and career-ready by 22. When a driver publicly says, actually, I’m not fine — and then resets, visibly — it chips away at an old and unhelpful myth. Mansell’s decision to step back from F2 will have cost him momentum. It might have saved him much more.
None of this writes off a single-seater return. If anything, doing the hard work now could make him better prepared for whatever’s next. But this isn’t about what box he ticks next season. It’s about taking control of a career that was running away from him, and choosing the road that lets him enjoy driving again.
He closed his message with thanks to family and close friends who carried him through the low points, and with the kind of clarity that suggests he’s ready to go racing on his own terms.
It’s good to see him back on a grid — any grid. And if the Abu Dhabi race goes well, it won’t be the last time we write his name this year.
