Round 5 in Barcelona kicked off the stat of a triple header as we approach the halfway point of the season with the title battle wide open.
Finlay McSporran
Published: 17:16, 24th June 2024
This weekend we saw a new race winner, new pole sitter and the championship lead change hands once again! There’s a lot to unpack here so let’s get straight into it with qualifying on Friday.
Qualifying
It was a perfect start to the weekend for Christian Mansell, with the Aussie securing a maiden pole position in F3, beating Prema’s Arvid Lindblad by just 0.036 seconds. Lindblad’s teammates and title contenders Dino Beganovic and Gabrielle Mini faired less well however, as they qualified 14th and 15th respectively. Santiago Ramos qualified 12th meaning that he would start on reverse grid pole for the sprint race with Trident teammate Sami Meguetounif alongside him.
Sprint Race
A good launch for Ramos allowed him to take the lead into turn 1, ahead of Meguetounif and Spanish driver Mari Boya. The two Tridents battled for the race lead as they started lap 3 however going into turn 1 Meguetounif lost control off the car and hit his teammate, taking both Tridents out of the race. This promoted home favourite Mari Boya to the race lead, with McLaren junior Alex Dunne now in second and Goethe in 3rd.
Boya’s teammate Montoya was also on the move, going from P27 to P12 and with 4 laps left was lining up a move on championship leader Gabrielle Mini. However, a puncture for Mini meant that he lost control of his Prema, taking himself and Montoya out of the race.
Out in front, Boya crossed the line for his first victory in F3 at his home race while Alex Dunne became the first Irishman to score a podium in F3, while Redbull junior Goethe picked up another podium.
Boya’s victory meant that he became the ninth different winner in a row this year, with no driver having won more than one race this year.
Feature Race
Sunday’s feature race marked the 100th Formula 3 race in the modern era since the series began in 2019 at the very same circuit. Starting on pole was Christian Mansell who lead into the first corner with Lindblad in second. Mansell didn’t break away from Lindblad in the way that he might have wanted, as the Prema driver was in DRS range and getting closer every lap, taking the lead on lap 5.
The race would settle down from there, with no major incidents or battles. The only thing that seemed to challenge Lindblad was the weather, as light rain hit the track towards the end of the race, forcing him to drive a little slower than usual as he crossed the line to become the first repeat winner of the season, having won the opening race in Bahrain to become F3 youngest race winner at just 16 years old!
He would be joined on the podium by Christian Mansell who picks up another podium to add to his title challenge while a P3 for Leonardo Fornaroli sees him take the lead of the championship after a disappointing weekend for rival Mini.
Championship Outlook
Speaking of the championship, there are still plenty of drivers in contention, with Lindblad moving up to 4th in the standings with his feature race win, just 13 points behind leader Fornaroli, with Macau GP winner Luke Browning the closest challenger being just 5 points behind.
There’s still plenty of time for the championship lead to change and for other drivers to get involved as we head to Austria for round 6/10 this weekend before concluding the triple header at Silverstone the week after.
Tags:
Blog GP 
Leave a comment