Stromsted ‘excited’ to return to Spa-Francorchamps after maiden F3 victory in 2025

Noah Stromsted returns to scene of his first ever victory in Formula 3 this weekend, as he previewed the Round 6 action at Spa-Francorchamps.

The TRIDENT driver won last year’s Sprint Race ahead of Ugo Ugochukwu, and ahead of taking to the track on Friday morning, he spoke about the keys to success in the Belgian hills.

“It feels good to be back,” said Stromsted on returning to Spa. “Of course, I have good memories from last year, winning my first race here in F3. So I’m excited to race here again.

“It's quite a long lap, it's a track like no other. I think it's quite a difficult overall weekend to perform well, and of course qualifying is very important.

“The slipstream around here is very important as well, and then the races with the DRS and the slipstream will be quite hard to manage also.

Looking more into the weekend, there are different factors that could affect the drivers such as the chances of rain, and how much the track conditions will change each session.

“Of course, with rain it changes a lot,” said Stromsted. “Especially in Spa, you never really know until you're driving because it can change so quickly. So I think it's just being able to adapt quickly and be on top of things.

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“I think most of the time it's important to have a good Free Practice for a good place to start. Then from there you can build and understand a bit more going into the qualifying.

“Normally there's a big change of grip in the track itself, especially here where we have the Hard compound tyre for Free Practice and then the Medium for the qualifying.

“But it's difficult to take anything from the Free Practice into the races. I think the grip levels in the track will be very different from Friday to Sunday. But of course, we'll have a bit more running on the Hard, so maybe we can try to understand a bit from that.”

Crucially for Stromsted, he is returning to Spa on a good run of form. He has finished inside the top five at the last four races at Spielberg and Silverstone – even winning the Feature Race at the Red Bull Ring.

“I think the last two weekends have been quite good,” he said. “I'll just try to keep the momentum and keep the things I've been doing the last two weekends.”

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So what will it take for Stromsted to continue this positive form at Spa. For him, it will start with a strong result in Qualifying.

“I think you need a good qualifying, like always you have to be in the front positions,” he continued. “From there, it is about tyre management.

“It’s about how you manage the race with overtaking and how much you save your tyres for the last part of the race. It will be a bit like in Austria, I believe.”