Trident chargers aiming to help team to another F3 title in 2024

Two new arrivals join Leonardo Fornaroli at Trident for the 2024 FIA Formula 3 campaign as the team seeks to carry on from where it left off in 2023.

The Milanese outfit helped Gabriel Bortoleto claim the Drivers’ Championship last year, with two race wins and four podiums ensuring the Brazilian was uncatchable in what was a season of impressive consistency paired with speed.

Fornaroli is joined by Sami Meguetounif and Santiago Ramos. Can they take the fight to PREMA Racing once again and topple their compatriots from atop the F3 mountain in 2024?

Starting out with the known quantity, Fornaroli is a hugely popular figure within the Trident team. He's rarely without a huge smile across his face and has generated a great working relationship with his compatriots, engineers, and mechanics.

That counts for a great deal, with familiarity leading to improved confidence in the team and he began to show bursts of potential during the 2023 season. Turning those bright spots like his P2 finish in the Monte Carlo Sprint Race and pole position at Silverstone into more regular occurrences will be the target for him this time around.

His consistency in terms of points scoring finishes did improve in the second half, securing at least a point in seven of the final nine races from last year, though with just three podiums and two of those coming earlier in the year, he will be focused on more rostrum appearances in 2024.

Meguetounif is the first of two rookies at Trident in 2024 and the Frenchman will be aiming to start off strongly after a more difficult year in FRECA in 2023. Meguetounif was on the podium in Round 2 but only after three non-scoring results.

However, he managed to bounce back with two podiums later in the season with a pair of P2 finishes coming at Le Castellet and the Red Bull Ring. With his early season podium coming at Barcelona, he will hope to replicate those performances at venues he’ll be visiting in F3 this coming season.

Also counting in his advantage is experience around Monte Carlo, coming in 2022 with FRECA as he narrowly missed out on a points finish. Still, with such limited practice time available to the drivers ahead of the always important Qualifying session, any prior mileage around the Principality is a huge plus.

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

Ramos joins the aforementioned duo after a mixed campaign, also in FRECA. The Mexican driver improved from his maiden campaign in the series, ending 11th in the Drivers’ Championship in 2023 with a fastest lap and podium to his record.

While Ramos arrives as a rookie, he will be aiming to hit the ground running as he did last year, when he secured eight scoring results in the opening 11 races of the season. That will count in his favour highly in F3, especially with the number of fellow rookies joining the Championship finding their feet early on in 2024.

Ramos’ 2023 season was his best to date, securing more points finishes and podiums than in any of his previous single seater campaigns. With Trident, he’s in the right place to build on that experience and capitalise on the team’s strong and consistent pace in Formula 3.

Trident have always been a contender in FIA Formula 3 and with Fornaroli heading into his second season with the team, the Italian will have high hopes of replicating what ’23 teammate Bortoleto achieved last year.

Discounting the first year of the FIA F3 Championship in 2019, Trident has always taken at least three race victories across a single campaign, with their finest coming in 2021 when they achieved five on the way to the Teams’ Championship.

Fornaroli will be eager to achieve a maiden victory after a season of getting to grips with F3 while Meguetounif and Ramos have both shown in the past they are able to fight for podiums early in a season despite relative inexperience.

That kind of adaptability will need to come through if Trident are to dethrone compatriots PREMA Racing once again in the Championship fight, but the team’s lineup should be contenders throughout the year, as is usually the case with Trident in Formula 3.