Leonardo Fornaroli’s Melbourne Weekend in his Words

Leonardo Fornaroli enjoyed a stellar couple of days in Melbourne, scoring his second Formula 3 pole position, taking home a nice haul of points and some silverware for Trident.

It was a weekend that pleased him and one the Italian driver is keen to use as a springboard moving forward into the rest of the year.

PRACTICE – P2

“I prepared a lot for this weekend on the simulator and with my physical trainer. Of course we have high expectations, and we want to have a good weekend. We saw in Bahrain that we have good potential, so we are ready for the weekend. It feels amazing to be back here at this track, it’s beautiful. It was a quiet session, I felt good with the car, with the balance and with my driving so I can’t wait for Qualifying.

“I’m happy with the result, at the start I was taking it easy because it’s a very difficult track. So, I was improving lap after lap and I improved on the last lap, so very happy about our performance and we'll keep pushing for Quali.

“Of course I want to have a good result in Qualifying. We already know our strategy, we know what to do, I am just going to push step-by-step and deliver the best at the end.”

QUALIFYING – P1

“I am super happy to be back on pole here in Melbourne, the car felt amazing the whole session. I want to thank Trident for the hard work. Overall, it was a very nice session, and I was P1 and P2 during every lap I was doing. The last part of Qualifying was a bit tricky because I was P2 behind Gabriele Minì and I knew I had only one shot to improve, but we managed it quite well and I am super happy about this result.

“I think it was more my performance that improved. During my push laps in Practice, some corners were still not at the limit because I was still discovering something, understanding the car, the track, where to go and stuff like that. But I knew that if I was putting everything together, we would be on it.

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“Before starting the push lap, I was just trying to stay as calm as possible saying to myself ‘Okay Leo no mistakes, don't take any stupid risks like Bahrain’. On the last lap, it was a clean lap, I was happy about it, and we managed it well.”

SPRINT RACE – P9

“Not the race I was hoping for unfortunately. We got a mega start, we were P9 in the first lap then it was just about managing your tyres but all the drivers around me were pushing on the limit so I had to do the same also, otherwise I would fall into the back. Unfortunately, in a fight with Dino Beganovic I made a mistake at Turn 12, went into the gravel, and basically destroyed my race. But we move on to tomorrow where we are going to start from pole position. We are going to analyse the race, data and see what I did wrong, to not repeat it again, so let's hope for a very good result for tomorrow.”

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FEATURE RACE – P2

“A good way to finish the weekend. Our pace was strong the whole weekend. I had a very good start and then straight away there was a Safety Car. At the restart I created a good gap to Gabriele, and then our pace was strong. I saw Dino coming from behind and I knew he had fresher tyres than me, so then with DRS, he overtook me, so I decided to stay behind and follow him.

“I tried to overtake him during the remainder of the race, but I was not close enough to try and attack him and in the last two laps, I lost the DRS. But very good points for the Championship and now we have the Barcelona test, and we will work hard to improve the car for the next race.”

UP NEXT – IMOLA

“Imola is one of my favourite tracks. We will prepare for the round as much as possible in the simulator and also with testing. We are testing some things in Barcelona, so in this break we will prepare as much as we can.”