Stenshorne ready for unpredictability in Melbourne season-opener

With a winter of preparation in the books, Martinius Stenshorne and Hitech TGR head to Melbourne with high hopes of replicating their form from 2024 around Albert Park.

The Norwegian claimed his maiden Formula 3 victory in last year’s Sprint Race, which proved to be his strongest result of the campaign.

Reflecting on his past success, he says it does provide a confidence boost, but he is squarely focused on the here and now, with the team eager to make a strong start to 2025.

“It feels good to be back,” he said. “Last year it was the big highlight of my season, my first and only win and first points in F3. It’s really nice to be back here in such a great city and I’m really enjoying it so far.

“It’s nice to know that you’ve been quick here before, but that doesn’t mean too much this year. It’s a whole year ago now, so it doesn’t mean too much anymore. I come here like I would any other race, and the focus is on the preparation which we’ve been doing.”

The teams and drivers have been getting to grips with the new 2025 car ahead of the new season getting underway in Australia, with three days of pre-season testing in Barcelona last month.

Stenshorne says that the event proved useful for the team, allowing them to overcome some early issues to gather important data ahead of Round 1.

While he was pleased with the work Hitech ended up carrying out, the McLaren Driver Development Programme member says it’s too early to know where he and the team stack up versus rivals.

“Testing wasn’t too bad. We struggled a bit in the beginning, but I think we found better pace towards the end of the dry running, then the last day was in the wet. I think overall, we tested what we wanted to. I think it was quite a positive test.

“It’s very difficult to know where you are. You don’t know everyone else’s run plan and what they’re doing, so I think it’s difficult to say where we are at the moment. But we will find out on Friday.”

READ MORE: Kicking off the new era Down Under: What to watch for in Melbourne

However, he was able to gain insight into how the new car behaves out on track. Stenshorne has a year of F3 experience to fall back on, and understanding of how the old car behaved in comparison to the new one.

Having completed three days of on-track running in the 2025 machine, he believes that the differences between the two are minimal overall, beyond the newly styled aerodynamics.

“The new car is a bit different, but I didn’t feel too much of a change compared to the old one. Some people have said it’s super different, some people say it’s not so big of a difference, so to be honest, I didn’t feel a big one.

“There are some aero differences, the tyres are now bigger as well, so that’s going to be interesting to see, especially with the Medium compound we have to manage this weekend.

“Last year it was quite difficult with overheating here, so it’s going to be interesting to see how it will play out this weekend.”

“We only used the Hard compound so far, so it’ll be a new challenge and one I hope we’re ready for.”

Turning his attentions to the important sessions of the weekend, forecast rain on Sunday looms, but may well come too late to impact F3’s first Feature Race of the year.

If it does arrive, Stenshorne says he will welcome the challenge, but he believes Qualifying will remain the most important session to maximise. In any case, he says that the 2025 season opener is set to be a very intriguing weekend.

“I think the rain is forecast for the afternoon, but it’s important to be open to anything. If it rains, we will push no matter what.

“Qualifying is always going to be the most important thing, as always. We have to see about both races, but we’re not sure yet, though I think it’s going to be exciting.”