Christian Mansell on his 2024 Season: Achieving the maximum makes for a successful year

Christian Mansell was one of the six title contenders at the final round in Monza and while things didn’t go in his favour there, he still looks back on his 2024 Formula 3 campaign as a success.

Driving for ART Grand Prix in his second campaign in the Championship, Mansell was a regular presence inside the top 10 in Qualifying and the races.

While he couldn’t climb onto the top step during the year, the Australian says that he feels he maximised his opportunities across the season overall.

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“I think this year has been very positive for a bunch of reasons,” Mansell explained. “I think I was able to make a step. You could even see it from the outside, just in my general demeanour of driving the car and hustling the car a bit more than I did in the Campos last year.

“I think I was a bit timid in that year, but to be honest, it made me really push hard in the ART car to get on top of it as quick as possible. I put pressure on myself to get it right. It was a healthy amount of pressure, it worked really, really well, I wasn't overdoing it or over-stressing myself, but I managed get on top of it.

“I can be proud of myself, because sometimes, the ART car wasn't the fastest, and sometimes it was the fastest, and I just drove the maximum of the car every single time, and what you saw was what it was. I think that I can be very proud of that.”

There were two opportunities he feels went by the wayside in his pursuit of F3 victory though, and on both occasions, he was denied by a PREMA Racing driver.

Having topped his Qualifying group in Monte Carlo, Mansell lined up alongside Gabriele Minì on the front row but couldn’t pressure the Italian into a mistake. One round on in Barcelona and it was Pole Position, but this time it was Arvid Lindblad that prevented Mansell’s moment.

The ART driver accepted that in both races, he had nothing else to give and was just beaten by a faster combination leaving him with no regrets.

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“You have to look at the facts when it comes to this stuff. I think the times that I've been in the best position to win would have either been Monaco or Barcelona, and at the end of the day, I genuinely do think that I had a little bit of an edge on Gabriele in Monaco, but it's just the fact that you can't pass.

“I decided to back off and opt for a safe race, but in the opening stages, I attacked him like no tomorrow, I genuinely was really, really competitive. But also in Barcelona, I tried to do my best to manage my car and my race but at the end of the day, Arvid had the faster car.

“F3 is so close and at the end of the day, it sort of goes back to the fact of when the car is on, the car is on, and then when it's not, it's not, it's just reality. Sometimes you can do all you can, and you still won't win.

“But I look at this year and every single time I've jumped in the car; I've given the absolute maximum of the potential that it has. So that's how I've left this season with no regrets, because I genuinely think I couldn't do any more than what I've done.

“As a racing car driver, it's very nice to be content in that area, but my natural competitive side, I would have loved to win a race, but it's not really changed much in the grand scheme of things.”

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Mansell did enter the final round with a mathematical chance of clinching the 2024 Drivers’ Title but admitted ahead of the weekend it would be a long shot.

What he might not have envisioned was being directly involved in the outcome in the final corner of the season, as eventual Champion Leonardo Fornaroli entered the history books with a “bat out of hell” move as Mansell details.

He added that his time in F3 meant he was able to evaluate in the moment the repercussions of the move, the drivers he was battling and his biggest takeaway from the Championship.

“I saw Leo coming in the mirrors like a bat out of hell. It was a big move but if I tried to hang it around the outside, I just would have been fed off into the runoff, or if I turned in, we both would have crashed.

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“I can put a big move on, but I can also respect a big move. And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm in the position that I was in in the Championship. When you're driving with people like Gabriele, Fornaroli, Browning and Arvid, you can put a big move on and they're going to respect it.

“With some others who are coming through - don't get me wrong, they're also extremely talented, but they're just not as respectful or not as smart as some of the other contenders, and I think that's just the rookie mentality. I think I learned that a lot from last year: the smarter you can be in Formula 3, the better you'll come out.”