RACE ANALYSIS: How Voisin perfected the restarts to claim victory at Spa

30 July 2024

Callum Voisin took his and Rodin Motorsport’s first FIA Formula 3 victory at Spa-Francorchamps in an impressive manner.

In a stop-start race, starting on pole, the Briton magnificently managed his way through three restarts to stay ahead of his rivals, particularly Campos Racing’s Sebastián Montoya in second.

What was so eye-catching about the way Voisin performed was that in a 15-lap race, there were only four laps of racing because of the Safety Car interventions required.

Therefore, keeping track position was important for Voisin as time would not be on his side to regain the place if he lost out to Montoya or to anybody else behind.

This was not easy, especially down the long Kemmel Straight in the first sector, as we saw in the Sprint Race when Gabriele Minì lost the lead to his PREMA Racing teammate Dino Beganovic.

As the lead car you do not have the benefit of the slipstream that the cars behind get, so it can leave you in a vulnerable position.

With a Safety Car, the field backs up, and he was in a situation where Montoya and the rest of the field where right behind him, so timing his restarts to build a gap was critical, and Voisin did just that.

Voisin made a good start from pole but the race was soon neutralised with a Safety Car

THE FIRST RESTART

After a nice start from Pole Position, Voisin kept the lead, with Montoya having an impressive run to Turn 1, getting ahead of Leonardo Fornaroli and Alexander Dunne to get to P2.

But there was a call for the Safety Car on Lap 3, with Martinius Stenshorne and Tuukka Taponen having two separate incidents that saw them collide into each other at Stavelot.

The Safety Car peeled in at the end of Lap 6, which meant Voisin had four laps to think about his plans at the restart.

He chose to go late in the lap at the start of the final chicane, trying to catch Montoya off-guard. It worked in his favour as he had a lead of over six-tenths by the time they went up Eau Rouge.

But after just half a lap, the Safety Car was needed once again.

Voisin was able to stay ahead of Montoya at the first restart

THE SECOND RESTART

Following a collision between Voisin’s Rodin teammate Joseph Loake and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Sophia Floersch at the Bruxelles chicane, the race was neutralised once more.

With the track clear, they Safety Car period ended on Lap 9 with Voisin leading another restart.

On this occasion, he chose to go earlier, this time at Blanchimont, a riskier choice as Montoya had a straight where he could keep up with him.

Sam Waple: Voisin victory down to pure performance gains

However, he was able to create a gap and by the start-finish line, he was 0.652s ahead of the Colombian driver. What may have helped him is that Montoya may not have expected him to go that early and the dirty air from following Voisin through the corners could have put him on the back foot.

Voisin though had survived another restart, but he had to do it again when a third Safety Car was required. A collision between Arvid Lindblad and Christian Mansell at the Bruxelles chicane and with Mari Boya in the barrier at Turn 11 meant the track needed to be cleared.

A second strong restart put Voisin clear of Montoya heading to Turn 1

THE THIRD RESTART

The Safety Car returned to the pit lane at the end of Lap 13, meaning we had just two laps of racing.

For Voisin, this was the most important restart, as any loss of position could have been permanent with there not being a lot of laps left for him to retake the position.

He was on the backfoot as with two previous restarts already under his belts, he did not have many more surprises up his sleeve.

Talking through the restarts in his Weekend in my Words guest column, Voisin said: “The first was really good, second one was decent, and the last one was tough because there was only so many ways you can go about it, I was running out of ideas.”

So, Voisin chose to repeat the second restart saying in this Post-race thoughts of the top three: “The last one - I couldn’t keep changing it up in time. It was extremely tough.”

It worked again, but maybe not as well. As they crossed the line, Montoya was just 0.492s behind Voisin, closer than he had been at any of the two previous restarts, showing that he had learned and maybe was more aware of what was going to come.

Voisin took his and Rodin's first F3 victory with a mature performance

This put him closer going into the Kemmel Straight and while he was able to close in with the help of the slipstream, Voisin kept him at bay.

FEATURE RACE: Voisin takes maiden F3 victory in busy Spa-Francorchamps affair

That was key as he pulled out a gap of more than eight-tenths across the line to take his and Rodin’s first victory.

It was an impressive display from him, as his ability to think under pressure was thoroughly tested and he passed with flying colours.