Controlled oversteer, braking earlier and Qualifying: How I Race with Noah Stromsted

Noah Stromsted’s 2025 Formula 3 season has had plenty of high moments and as he prepares to for the final round of his rookie campaign, the TRIDENT driver has learned a lot.

A huge part of that has been in how he adapts to Qualifying, which he explains in his own instalment of How I Race, where he talks all things driving style.

“This year the car hasn't changed too much from last year, the most different thing is the tyres but driving-wise, it's not a big difference.

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“I would say I like a race car quite pointy on the front but also controlled. It's not like you always need to control the rear, you also need to input the steering and do what you want with the front. But it's not like the front is taking over the whole car.

“That's the way I like the cars to be, especially for Qualifying. For the races, in general, you try to have a bit more rear to save the tyres, to drive the car a bit easier when under heavy fuel.

“Normally there’s also quite a lot of deg when you are behind a lot of people, so that's how we try to do it and it's usually very good.

“I think for me the oversteer is normally faster. If you have a bit too much oversteer than too much understeer, it's a lot easier, at least for me, to control the oversteer and drive faster.

“If you have understeer, it's more difficult to change your driving, to make the car more oversteery and to get more rotation.

“When you have a very pointy front, you can be easier with the throttle release, easier on the brakes, easy with the steering inputs, that's the main thing for me.

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“To be honest this year we have started well with the car from Free Practice, so it's minor changes that we do. But we try to start on the oversteery side than the understeery side.

“It's easier to go back than to go forward, at least that's how I feel. Typically, that's what we try to do during a weekend.

“Braking points in general are quite fixed from the start of the weekend. You have your braking points you already know from the start of the weekend, you start using them in Free Practice and then you fine tune for Free Practice and Qualifying.

“But in general, I am not always the latest braker. It's quite risky compared to braking one or two metres earlier and then always having a good exit, which is where most of the time is in general. You gain most of the time on exit.

“For sure there are some places where one of my teammates is braking late and gaining time and another where I am braking late and gaining time. We all learn from each other in Free Practice and Qualifying, it is in general who uses the information best and who then adapts and finds the best points.

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“For sure Qualifying this year for me is about the way you approach it. You need to be fully on it already from the first lap in Free Practice and this is something I was not the best at, at the start of the season.

“I was still approaching it like I was in FRECA, trying to build up, you don't really have the time or the tyres to do it, because the tyres drop off very quickly at their peak compared to FRECA.

“So it's a lot more difficult to get everything right for Qualifying in F3 compared to FRECA.”