Interview
Stromsted keen to be as ready as possible with Trident ahead of 2025 F3 campaign
Noah Stromsted is excited to be joining Trident for a full season of Formula 3 in 2025, and he is already aware of the areas he needs to work on in order to hit the ground running next year.
The 17-year-old enjoyed a strong 2024 campaign, finishing sixth overall and also becoming Rookie Champion in this year’s Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine thanks to his four podiums.
He is now set to graduate to Formula 3 with Trident in 2025 and speaking recently, Stromsted could not hide delight at the opportunity presented to him.
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“Well, it’s a good opportunity for me,” he said. “This year coming from FRECA, I learned a lot and I think I am ready for the step up to F3 with Trident.
“It's a great team, they have won the Drivers' Championship the last two years and already from the tests we had I learned a lot, and the team is easy to work with.”
Stromsted has driven a Formula 3 car competitively before having joined Campos Racing for this year’s season finale in Monza.
However, the post-season tests in Jerez and Barcelona gave him a much more in depth understanding of F3 machinery and how it compares to ones he has driven before.
“The F3 car is a lot faster,” he explained. “It has a lot more downforce, a bigger engine, so in general just a faster car. Also, there is less time on track, so you have to be more prepared and more ready for every time you go out.
“From the race I did in Monza I did three or four push laps before going into Qualifying and Monza is always a mess for qualifying, so in the end I only had one push lap.
“It’s always difficult to try and put everything together in that one lap without a lot of driving. So, you need to do a lot of simulator work before to try to understand the car, the track and how everything will be when you go out.
“In Barcelona, we did a lot of quali runs and also long runs. In the quali runs we were focusing on putting the one lap together because in this Championship you only have one lap on the tyres, which compared to FRECA we had a lot more.
“So, it's about putting everything together in that one lap. In that long run, it’s about understanding how the car and tyres behave throughout the run and how you can try to maximise it.
“This is because the car balance and everything else changed from the start to the middle to the end, so trying to understand what the car does and how you as a driver can maximise it.”
This a part of the “driving techniques” that Stromsted mentioned he and his new teammate Rafael Câmara were working hard to learn at the post-season tests.
He revealed that tyre management was a key area of focus for the rookie pair, with Stromsted learning to “under drive” at the beginning of his long runs to keep them in good shape.
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But having Câmara and the returning Charlie Wurz in the debrief next to him is something he feels will be a huge benefit. On the one hand he has a fellow FRECA graduate to measure himself against and on the other an experienced driver to learn from.
“It's been good in the tests for sure,” said Stromsted of working with his new teammates. “Charlie had a better understanding of the car and the tyres, and me and Rafa were improving on each day.
“We were understanding more and more and for sure pushing each other, but also learning a lot from each other and you can see me and Rafa had a bit of the FRECA driving technique we needed to change for F3.
“But I think it's good that it's two of us from FRECA, so you have a benchmark in these tests, and you see how you evolve and improve, and to have Charlie who had one year in F3 already is also good.”
Stromsted’s focus now shifts to preparing for the 2025 campaign, and with a new car being introduced he is excited by the opportunity to help Trident develop it through the feedback he gives in pre-season and across the year.
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For now, though, he will be spending a lot of time in the simulator, looking to be as sharp as possible as he aims to hit the ground running in 2025.
“We had some tests now in the old car in Jerez and Barcelona, now it's a lot of sim,” said Stromsted. “The tools we have now in the sim are very good to try and improve your driving because the techniques you do in the sim and real life, they are basically the same.
“So, it's doing a lot of sims and trying to improve there. Also, with the new car coming we need to try and make a model for the sim, do a lot of simulations, and try to be as ready as we can be.”