Early season trends, contenders and stats: F3 2024 so far

3 April 2024

This season’s Formula 3 campaign is shaping up to be a closely fought Championship between several contenders if the early races are a sign of things to come.

Four drivers have stood atop the podium so far in 2024, while two are currently locked level on points at the summit in the Drivers’ Championship.

What can we read into this at such an early point in the season and what is more wait and see prior to Imola?

THE TITLE FIGHT

The 2024 title picture is beginning to take form though there is still a long way to go, yet it’s a very exciting prospect after the opening two rounds of the year.

With Luke Browning and Leonardo Fornaroli tied on 37 points apiece, this is currently the closest F3 season since 2022. Like that year, we have a tie at the top going into Round 3. Victor Martins and Arthur Leclerc were both on 36 at that stage coming out of Imola, while fellow title contenders Roman Stanek, Jak Crawford and Isack Hadjar trailed within five points.

In 2024, Gabriele Minì is third in the Standings, five points behind the leaders, while Dino Beganovic’s Feature Race win in Melbourne moved him onto 28, nine off the top.

WHAT WE LEARNED: The Main Takeaways from Round 2 of the season in Melbourne

Multiple contenders vying for the title is always a positive, and while there are many, many races to go, each driver has shown signs they are set to stay in the title picture going forward.

2022’s title fight ebbed and flowed throughout and across Rounds 3 to 5 - the halfway point in the campaign, Martins’ points lead never exceeded six points, and he was just a single point ahead of Hadjar going into the second half of the season.

Any form of repeat this season and we may well be looking at another classic F3 campaign.

PURSUIT OF PREMA

PREMA lead the way but are the Champions in for a big fight this year?

Like the Drivers’ Championship, the Teams’ Standings are shaping up to be close, even if PREMA Racing managed a return to form in Melbourne with a double podium in the Feature Race. Currently, the reigning Champions lead the way on 83 points, and familiar foes Trident are next best with 60.

It is the smallest margin since 2022 as only three more points separate first from second at this stage of the season versus ’22, but are we about to see PREMA stretch their advantage in the next few races?

With Imola up next, Trident will be feeling good about their chances, winning the last F3 race there, courtesy of Stanek back in 2022. The team also secured a front-row lockout in Qualifying as Zane Maloney headed up the Czech driver on Friday.

In fact, PREMA have never taken a first or second-place finish at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari before. Crawford’s third-place finishes in the Sprint and Feature Races is the best result for a PREMA driver around the circuit, while Oliver Bearman’s P5 finish in the former event represents the only other scoring finish by the Italian team there.

ART ON THE UP?

Podiums in the early rounds and points have ART Grand Prix looking in good shape

It has been a more positive start to the new season for ART Grand Prix than the ending was in 2023, but are the French team experiencing something of an F3 renaissance?

Well, looking at their results last season, it makes for tricky reading at this point of the campaign. This year follows a largely similar pattern to that of 2023, with early season performances looking strong.

Christin Mansell and Laurens van Hoepen are seventh and eighth in the Drivers’ Championship respectively. The Australian has been a points’ scorer on three out of a possible four occasions so far, while rookie van Hoepen has two podiums to his name already.

However, looking at 2023, it’s similar form to what Grégoire Saucy was able to achieve in ART colours. The Swiss began last year on the front foot before his and the ART’s effort began to fall away in the second half of the year.

What is promising though for the French squad is having two of their three drivers inside the top 10 at this stage of proceedings. There appears to be some strong underlying speed for them this year, with room to improve in the coming rounds. While it might be too early to tell, it’s definitely worth watching this space.

SHOOTS OF GROWTH

Loake enjoyed his best result to date in the Melbourne Sprint Race, rising to P14

Rodin Motorsport have been making great efforts to right the ship and achieve competitiveness in Formula 3. The team underwent a transformation over the winter break, and there does appear to be signs of promise.

Rookie Joseph Loake put in a stellar drive in Melbourne, going from P29 to P14 in the shorter Sprint Race, pulling off various overtaking manoeuvres and showing an assuredness at the wheel.

That will not have been possible without, one, Loake’s talent in the F3 car and two, a positive baseline from Rodin in terms of the direction they’re going with the car and setups in 2024.

It wasn’t the points finish the team are chasing down with dogged determination, but along with teammates Callum Voisin and Piotr Wisnicki, the result is an early bright spot for the team. Rodin appear to be much happier with their trajectory this season compared to where they were last year, as continued improvements flow from the workshop to the race track.

As in-season testing approaches, they are one of the teams that can benefit most from the opportunity, putting what they learned from Melbourne into practice and then carrying that into Round 3 and Imola.