Pre-season expectations: What each team will be aiming for in 2024

The winter break is rolling on, but the work has been underway for months as teams gear up for an all-new FIA Formula 3 campaign. The 2024 season will be the sixth season of the Championship and the grid is taking shape nicely.

With each passing year, expectations grow ever higher and the 2024 grid will have plenty of targets they’ll be looking to hit. Those at the top will always be under threat from their closest rivals while other teams will be aiming to improve and take a step forward this year.

Here is a preview of what is to come in 2024 for all 10 teams on the grid.

PREMA RACING

The Venetian empire goes marching on as PREMA Racing now stand atop the F3 mountain with four Teams’ Championship trophies for René Rosin’s squad. The Italians are serial winners and last year was no different, achieving five victories across the campaign en route to the Teams’ title. 13 podiums though actually represented a shortfall from the marker they set in 2022 by two. Such are the high standards the team operates under, the numerical target to beat is clear.

What the reigning Champions will be most eager to achieve though is their first title sweep since Oscar Piastri celebrated the 2020 Drivers’ Championship alongside the team’s triumph that year. As is always the case in FIA F3, the level of competition continues to rise year after year and retaining the title is easier said than done, especially with compatriots Trident breathing down their necks.

TRIDENT

They aren’t quite the eternal bridesmaid in F3 having been the only team to beat PREMA across an FIA Formula 3 season, but Trident were frustrated to come up short in 2023. The team had a fantastic opportunity to dethrone their familiar foes last year but misfortune at the final hurdle and a strong response for PREMA at Monza ultimately prevented the Milanese team from securing a memorable Championship double.

Unquestionably though Trident are a force to be reckoned with and will be targeting a return to the summit this time around. Leonardo Fornaroli is back for his second season alongside rookies Sami Meguetounif and Santiago Ramos. All three will need to be on the top of their game in order to topple PREMA, but the speed is clearly there.

MP MOTORSPORT

While MP Motorsport moved up a place in 2023 compared to their fourth-place finish of 2022, the Dutch squad scored one point and two podiums fewer than in that campaign. However, MP finished last season on the highest possible note, securing the final win of the year in style and capping off the ’23 season as the highest scorers of the round having taken Sprint victory on Saturday along with a P3 finish at the Monza finale.

The team will expect more this year and hope to capitalise on their strong ending and turn that into early season form this time around. In 2023, they kicked off the year with a Sprint Race podium in Sakhir, but it wasn’t until Barcelona that the team stood on the rostrum again at Round 4, in which time they’d lost ground to their nearest rivals. Preventing a repeat is a good starting point for MP as they aim to close the gap to the Italian squads ahead of them.

CAMPOS RACING

Stellar progress was made by Campos Racing in 2023 as the team leapt up from eighth in the Teams’ Standings to fourth, growing into a title contender with Josep María Martí at the wheel. With more than three times the number of points from the previous season, Campos made huge performance gains last year and were contenders for podiums at almost every single race.

Oliver Goethe, Sebastián Montoya, and Mari Boya have each earned podiums in F3 already, with Goethe a race winner for Trident last season. All three have proven they are quick, and repeating their impressive results would be a solid start to the new season. For Campos as a whole, sustaining any title bid will be signal enough that the Spanish outfit are major contenders in Formula 3.

HITECH PULSE-EIGHT

2024 needs to be the year Hitech Pulse-Eight finally puts the speed they consistently have into title-contending action. The British outfit has been fifth for two years running but are yet to replicate their best F3 showing from 2019, a season in which they finished as runners-up to PREMA Racing. 2023 represented the team’s highest points total since that year, accumulating 170 points between their three drivers, but that could have been well above the 200 mark.

Ensuring they maximise their strongest weekends with podiums and wins will be crucial to improving their standing in the Championship, something they are more than capable of doing. The team’s impressive pace was on display around multiple types of circuits last year from the abrasive Sakhir International Circuit to the challenging streets of Monte Carlo. Consistency is the key for 2024.

JENZER MOTORSPORT

Celebrating their 30th anniversary last season, Jenzer Motorsport’s commemorative campaign was marked with a memorable double podium at Spa-Francorchamps that drove the team up the standings to finish sixth overall. Jenzer scored almost twice as many points finishes as they achieved in 2022, earning their highest ever points total since joining the Championship in its maiden season, breaking into triple digits.

The hard part this season will be to first sustain their impressive form showcased at the tail end of 2023 before going on to build on their growing momentum in F3 and target an even greater level of performance. Starting off on the right foot earlier in the year with more points finishes in the first couple of rounds will do a lot to help a team that has consistently shown improvement as the season progresses.

VAN AMERSFOORT RACING

It was a slight step backwards in 2023 for Van Amersfoort Racing. After making waves in their debut season back in 2022, the Dutch squad had been aiming to build on the solid foundations in their second FIA F3 campaign. The team were victorious again, with Caio Collet the Spa Sprint Race victor, but there is no question that they had hoped for more from last season.

Rookie Noel León joins Tommy Smith alongside another new addition Sophia Floersch in orange and black. While León will be eager to get his feet under the table quickly in what will be his first season of F3, Floersch can look to capitalise on her impressive performances from ’23, where she stood out on several occasions with comeback drives and a more than deserved points finish at Spa. Breaking the 95-point total they achieved in 2022 is an obvious target to aim for.

ART GRAND PRIX

A far cry from the ultra-competitive outfit ART Grand Prix has come to be, 2023 was a huge disappointment for the French squad in FIA Formula 3, as they slipped to eighth in the Teams’ Standings. There’s a lot of work to do over the break in order to improve things, but it must be said the team didn’t exactly enjoy the luckiest of seasons either last time around.

The team will be working hard to ensure there is no repeat of the unsatisfactory 2023 and there is no reason to believe ART won’t be back fighting for podiums and wins in 2024 given their historic level of competitiveness in the Championship. Maximising their pace on strong weekends will go a long way in improving their position and restore them to familiar territory. A streak of point scoring results to open the campaign would be a confidence-boosting start to 2024 and steady the ship.

PHM AIX RACING

With an all-new look for 2024, PHM AIX Racing hopes to make more forward progress in what is the German outfit’s second FIA Formula 3 campaign. Last year brought improvements and a points finish with Sophia Floersch at Spa-Francorchamps, but there is a lot of confidence behind the scenes that the six points of 2023 will be beaten and then some this time around.

Investment off the track will hopefully bring results on it, and the team is aiming to break into the top five this year. Team Principal Paul Muller has been effusive in his praise for the hard work the team’s mechanics, engineers and all the staff working to move PHM AIX forward into a more competitive package. Evidence of that progress will be key early on in 2024 as they aim to turn lofty ambition into material competitiveness.

RODIN MOTORSPORT

Rodin Motorsport will be aiming to bounce back from a difficult 2023 season in which they finished 10th overall. The team scored just a single points finish last year, coming on British soil in the Silverstone Sprint Race, and will be eager for greater returns this time around.

Callum Voisin joins the F3 effort having won last year’s GB3 Championship with the team. That winning feeling will be a positive to take into his rookie campaign and a year which the team will be working incredibly hard to move back up the grid to more familiar territory. Preventing a repeat of 2023 is top of the priority list for Rodin, a team with heritage and knowhow to make the steps of recovery into reality.