First F3 points a long time coming for Cohen

11 July 2022

Five rounds into the 2022 season and Ido Cohen was overjoyed to have finally brought home his maiden Formula 3 points in Sunday's arduous Feature Race. The Jenzer Motorsport driver helped to secure a double points finish for the Swiss team alongside teammate William Alatalo – their first of this year.

Finishing P10 at the chequered flag, he added an extra point to his tally post-race following a penalty for Trident’s Roman Stanek which promoted him to P9. Speaking after the exhilarating events, Cohen was thrilled to have achieved points having come close already this season.

“It's quite exciting to get my first points in the Championship. We've been waiting for this for a long time. I was already really close to getting them in Imola when I finished P10 but got a penalty for track limits. I’m happy we finally got there.”

His path to points was proof of all the skills he’s developed over the past season and a half in the Championship, having been unable to score any points last season whilst racing for Carlin.

Starting in P13, heavy rain overnight saw the race get underway with a rolling start. However, that didn’t do much to abate the standing water and spray that made conditions particularly treacherous, especially for Cohen whose setup wasn’t suited to the early stages of the race.

Nevertheless, he steadily climbed his way up the order until a Safety Car restart on Lap 23 left the door wide open for him to leap into the top 10. Drama up ahead between Caio Collet, Jonny Edgar and Jak Crawford sent the trio tumbling down the order and Cohen became one of the biggest beneficiaries.

“It was actually very difficult to manage, especially because we expected it to be drier than it actually was, so we went for a bit of a drier setup. It was very hard to manage in the first five laps, you barely see the front end of your own car from how wet it was. Luckily it got better and better during the race, and we found some more pace as well so it wasn’t too bad.

"Obviously, at that point I knew I was on the cusp of points, so I was focused on having a good restart and staying out of trouble. I was lucky to avoid the accident in Turn 1 and managed to gain some positions and finish P10.”

Jenzer’s double points finish should give both the team and Cohen a renewed sense of confidence heading into the final four rounds of the season. While P11 in Imola has been his best Qualifying performance so far this year, the previous two rounds in Barcelona and Silverstone saw him languish down in P25 and P20 on the starting grid.

There's a short break before the next round in Hungary at the end of July and the Israeli driver is keen use that time to continue his momentum, setting his target on breaking into the top 10 with his one-lap pace.

"My main focus point until now was Qualifying, which we managed to improve quite a lot in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully, we can do even a better job and keep improving on our Quali pace and work on our race pace as well.”