Fighting to the end: F3 Summer Wrap-Up

The summer break gives teams a final breather before the finale at Monza brings the curtain down on the 2023 campaign, but who has the most to prove in Italy?

From fast-starters to those who continued to build throughout the season, here is a rundown of the high points and areas to improve one last time on the Formula 3 grid, team by team.

PREMA RACING

All three drivers competitive

While rival teams have one or two of their drivers achieving their team’s best performances, PREMA Racing can boast that all three of its chargers have shone this year. Dino Beganovic is the only one of the trio that’s currently winless, but he is equal on podiums with his two teammates with four each. Paul Aron took a little longer than he’d have liked to hit his best form, but has been a constant presence at the sharp end in recent rounds. Zak O’Sullivan has been at his best since joining Formula 3 last year, winning the Silverstone and Budapest Feature Races in style. No other trio has been as consistently quick as the PREMA drivers.

Unable to sustain momentum

While there has been unquestionable speed from all three, it’s the consistency part of the equation where they have all fallen short. That is not down to one factor in particular and it will be a source of frustration to have been as competitive as they have been but not be closer to Bortoleto heading into the finale. Occasional driver error, misfortune and a lack of luck in the other direction has meant that only Aron now has a chance at the title. The Estonian was looking very strong in Spa-Francorchamps until the decision to pit him for dry tyres in the Feature Race before the crossover point had arrived. Without that decision, he may well have been within touching distance of the Championship leader heading to the team’s home event.

MONZA TARGET: Retain the Teams’ Championship

TRIDENT

Quick out of the gate

Nobody could keep up with Gabriel Bortoleto at the start of the campaign and that fast start built the foundations to his title bid. While the year started off with a contact in the opening Sprint Race of the season, the Brazilian rebounded to rack up the points in quick succession, round after round. Teammates Oliver Goethe and Leonardo Fornaroli took a little longer to build into the season, but they have both been showing their best form since the season returned to Europe after the early flyaways.

Lack of wins compared to rivals

While Trident were undoubtedly quick, especially in the hands of Bortoleto, the Italian team has three wins to show for their efforts this year. It’s one race fewer than what the squad managed in 2022, a season in which it missed out on both Championship titles. Two wins for Bortoleto and one for Goethe represents the third-highest wins total in 2023 for a single team, behind both PREMA Racing and Campos Racing. While Trident will be pleased should they clinch the Championship with Bortoleto, missing out on the Teams’ title will sting considering the team made such a promising start to 2023.

MONZA TARGET: Sign off 2023 with victory

CAMPOS RACING

Best F3 season so far

2023 has been a breakthrough year for the Campos Racing squad. The team has gone from a tough 2022 season to securing its best points total in Formula 3, spearheaded by Josep María Martí who made a title bid himself in the Drivers’ Championship. One race victory last year turned into three and the team has six podium finishes and its highest points total in the team’s history. You could even combine the points totals from 2019 through to 2022 and it still wouldn’t match the Campos total in 2023. Martí’s teammates Christian Mansell and Hugh Barter have both made marked improvements across the season too, with the former adding back-to-back podiums to his racing record just prior to the summer break and season finale.

Couldn’t sustain form for Martí’s title bid

While the team has been mightily impressive this season compared to previous years, it will feel a little disappointed to have not capitalised more. Martí’s mid-season victories elevated him up the Drivers’ Championship order and into a title fight. Unfortunately, while the hights in 2023 have been high, the lows have come at the worst times possible. Spa-Francorchamps was the ideal opportunity to steal away all of the momentum in the title battle having surged to pole. Instead, Martí was forced to watch the chance go begging from the sidelines. Bortoleto is now within touching distance of his ’23 crown, but it should have been so much closer going into Monza.

MONZA TARGET: Prove the speed can be there when it counts and win

HITECH PULSE-EIGHT

Pace from all three

The Hitech Pulse-Eight line-up for 2023 has been one of the most exciting to watch throughout the campaign. Gabriele Minì lost out on the Bahrain Feature Race win after a time penalty, but it was the earliest sign of potential from the British squad. Sebastián Montoya threatened to deliver more impressive performances after his cameo in 2022 at Zandvoort, and the Colombian has never shied away from a wheel-to-wheel battle all season long. Luke Browning made the step-up to FIA F3 this year and has also been lightning quick, even if results represent a disparity between true pace and current position.

Lack of consistency from all three

While the speed hasn’t been a problem for the Hitech bunch, the expected results have not followed. Minì’s time penalty in Bahrain lost him a comfortable victory on the road. Still, throughout the Melbourne Round, the Italian driver was strong but upon the return to Europe, he lost a step compared to his Championship rival at Trident. Browning has been a fast-starter on a race weekend on many occasions in 2023, but the Briton has failed to carry that across into a strong Qualifying result. That then has the knock-on effect of a tougher task in the races fighting back through the field. Montoya might not have been afraid of battling with other drivers, but on too many of those occasions he has come off worse, with damage or contact hurting his potential result.

MONZA TARGET: Show their speed with stronger results

MP MOTORSPORT

Perseverance

It was a game of patience at the start of the year for MP Motorsport after the team identified during pre-season testing it would struggle for the opening Round of the year. A difficult car to balance setup-wise, Franco Colapinto’s first win of the campaign was chalked off for a technical infringement, and the momentum was reset. Since then, the Dutch outfit has gone from strength to strength, improving the average finishes for all three of its drivers and securing a win that stuck, once more at the hands of Colapinto. Mari Boya and Jonny Edgar’s late season revivals have also been a huge positive in what has been a tough year on the team.

Slow start to ‘23

While the team and drivers can be satisfied with the leaps in progress it has made since the beginning of the year, not being at the front and fighting for victories more regularly will be a source of frustration. Usually a strong car in the races, poor Qualifying results have given the trio a lot to do on race days, and while sometimes they have come through for points, podiums and wins are the main goal for every driver.

MONZA TARGET: Six points-scoring results out of six

JENZER MOTORSPORT

Underlying speed

Jenzer Motorsport had been threatening a positive result all year, but Spa-Francorchamps was most likely beyond the team’s expectations. All three drivers inside the top five and a first win since 2019 at the hands of Yuki Tsunoda was a fantastic result to take into the break, and they will arrive at Monza full of confidence. Taylor Barnard showed the earliest signs of speed, securing a front row start in Barcelona while Nikita Bedrin was P2 on the Sprint grid in Budapest. Alejandro García has found it a little tougher but was well worth the P4 finish he earned at Spa after his best drive of the season.

Race pace problems

Where the team has struggled the most though is with its race pace. While Barnard was starting inside the top 10 regularly and scoring plenty of points in the early phase of the year, Jenzer’s drivers seemed to fade a little on race days compared to over a single flying lap. After in-season testing, all three were positive they’d found performance in the races, but so too did all of their rivals. Budapest demonstrated that they were on top of tyre degradation issues as others struggled much more severely, but there were definitely more points on the table this year if those woes were sorted earlier.

MONZA TARGET: More points

VAN AMERSFOORT RACING

Found speed through the year

Another team to have made improvements and secured better results as the season worn on, Van Amersfoort Racing’s second F3 campaign has had its ups and downs. The team has failed to match its total from its maiden season but has secured a victory, as it did in 2022. There has been forward progress from all three drivers, with Caio Collet achieving a Sprint win at Spa-Francorchamps after a pair of third-place finishes in the middle phase of the year. Likewise within the team, they are satisfied with Tommy Smith and Rafael Villagómez both taking steps forward during the season.

Not able to score when pace was there

On several occasions though, the team has missed out on points where it might have been able to score. Races like Monte Carlo in which contact brough Collet’s race to an early end have cost the team in the Standings. Other times it has been a case of near misses. Smith’s decision to fit wet tyres in the Silverstone Feature Race left him a matter of metres short of the points prior to a post-race penalty taking him further down the order. But they have been capable.

MONZA TARGET: Secure a final points flourish

ART GRAND PRIX

Started strongly

Grégoire Saucy was looking extremely competitive in pre-season testing and the early signs looked to be positive as he carried that into Round 1 in Sakhir. He maintained a perfect points-scoring record all the way up until Round 4 and Barcelona, where a mid-race collision put him out of the points and ended the run. Teammates Kaylen Frederick and Nikola Tsolov endured differing fortunes. The American added early points in Bahrain and Australia but hit a slump in form in the middle phase of the year. Tsolov finally earned his maiden F3 points in Spa with P7 in the Sprint Race after three P11 finishes earlier in the year.

Fell away as season progressed and rivals improved

While Saucy was an early title contender, ART Grand Prix couldn’t sustain the high levels that had helped put the Swiss there in the first place. As other teams and drivers picked up their form upon the return to Europe, ART appeared to take a step backwards and lost out. Tsolov couldn’t break into the points, Frederick was the sole points scorer for the team between Rounds 4 and 6 until Saucy broke a streak of five point-less races in the Silverstone Feature Race. The French squad will feel like it should be closer to the mark in both Championships, but it returns to the venue where it signed 2022 off with victory.

MONZA TARGET: Recapture early season speed

PHM RACING BY CHAROUZ

Points

There was a false dawn after the Spielberg Feature Race when Sophia Floersch won and then lost PHM Racing by Charouz’s maiden points after the team’s technical infringement, but at last they are on the board. In fact, in the past few rounds, Floersch has led the charge and been an impressive force. The German driver has gained over 50 positions in the last four races alone, capped off by the team’s first points of the year with P7 in a very difficult Feature Race at Spa. It has been the bright spot of the season and she has been finding plenty of speed in the latter stages of the 2023 campaign.

Logged laps in learning year

While the team will be satisfied to have earned a scoring result, 2023 has been a learning campaign and all three drivers have been logging the mileage all year long. They have mostly kept themselves out of trouble, with Roberto Faria earning 31 positions himself over the past four races. Just five non finishes this season has meant the team has gained valuable data to carry into 2024, where there is no reason why another step forward cannot be reached.

MONZA TARGET: Get as close to more points as possible

RODIN CARLIN

Making the most of it

It has been a character-building season for the British team. Points for Ido Cohen in the Silverstone Sprint Race has been as good as it’s gotten so far, but there have been some improved performances of late. Debuting at Spa, Franceso Simonazzi surged up the order from 29th on the grid up to P14 on his debut, proving that the team has great underlying pace.

Caught up in problems

On many occasions though this year, the team has been caught up in incidents not all of their own making. Cohen’s retirement at Spa for example was just the kind of misfortune that has hampered a team in desperate need of some luck to go their way.

MONZA TARGET: Stay out of trouble, sign off with positive results