Thought the 2017 championship was exciting? Well this season proves to be much of the same and more, with more drivers and new tracks - it is all go in the top Formula 3 series. The 2017 FIA Formula Three Championship was an enthralling affair, with British rookie Lando Norris claiming the title from the two experienced Prema Powerteam drivers Max Gunther and Callum Illott, as well as Swede sensation Joel Erikkson. There were many ups and downs as the season progressed but it the young Brit who triumphed for the Carlin race team and becoming the only team to ever beat Prema. With that in mind, can this year be any better. In one word – yes. The new season is still a while away, but already with twenty-three drivers confirmed of which more then half are rookie’s, the European F3 Championship is back to its glory days. While Prema will still be the team to beat, it has now been proven they can be beaten so look for teams such as Carlin and Motopark, who both field six cars each, bringing the fight to the supreme Italian team. Of the returning drivers, of which there are seven, Prema field the strongest line-up; Mick Schumacher, Ralf Aron and Guanyu Zhou. For Aron, this is his third year in the series, his first with Prema and will be looking for race wins and challenging both his experienced teammates. Schumacher was impressive at times last year, although like his first year in Formula 4, takes time to get used to the car. He should be a lot quicker this year and must be one of the favourites for the title. Carlin will again field Ferdinand Hasburg and Jehan Darvaula, the latter finishing as runner-up in the Rookie standings. Both have a race win and if Carlin can continue the momentum the generated last year, can challenge for more race wins and a possible chance at the title. Makino Sato and Keyvan Andres Sori make up the other non-rookies in the field and will be looking to improve on their solid, if not spectacular rookie year. However, it’s not the returning drivers which are the highlight this year – it’s the rookies. There are sixteen rookies this year (although Ameya Vaidyanathan does not have rookie status) and this is where the main battle will lie. Carlin have expanded from four to six cars for this year and fill them with Devlin De Francesco, Sacha Fenestraz, Nikita Troitskiy and Ameya Vaidyanathan. Both De Francesco and Vaidyanathan drove for Carlin in the EuroFormula series last year with Vaidyanathan finishing fourth and De Francesco third. Troitsky also raced in EuroFormula too with Drivex and finished second, although all three were comfortably beaten by Harrison Scott who is racing in the Pro Mazda Series in the USA this year. They will be looking to prove themselves this year with Troitskiy probably the best of the them. Fenestraz won the Formula Renualt Eurocup last year, beating Brit Will Palmer and is certainly a favourite to win the Rookie title and perhaps even the overall title. Motopark had a hard season last year. Apart from Joel Erikkson, the team was pretty poor and were more often than not, the third or fourth quickest team. This year, like Carlin, they have increased too six cars, of which five of them are rookies and four of them drove in the ADAC F4 Championship last year. Juri Vips won the ADAC F4 Championship, which is probably the hardest of the Formula 4 championships too win and improved on his sixth place from 2016. Joining him is fellow ADAC graduate, Fabio Scherer who finished fifth. It’ll certainly be a jump for the Swiss driver, but he’ll be certainly looking towards 2019 to mount a proper championship attack. Another Formula 4 driver is Sebastian Fernandez who finished in fourth place in the Italian F4 Championship. With the most wins of the season and showing good pace during pre-season testing, Fernandez is going to be a potential top rookie this season along with teammate Vips. Jonathan Aberdein is another ADAC F4 graduate, finishing ninth last season and winning the UAE Winter F4 Series in 2017. Like Scherer, this season will be about gaining experience in the car. Lastly, Daniel Ticktum is one of the fastest junior drivers in the world right now. He won the Autosport Young Driver last year and will be looking to carry on the momentum from finishing second best rookie in the Eurocup Championship in 2017. He is also the 2017 Macau Grand Prix winner and judging from pre-season testing, count him as a potential rookie winner and a top five overall is certainly possible. Van Amersfoort racing have cut back to two confirmed cars. Keyvan Andres Sori returns to the series and will hoping to build on his rookie year and hope to break into the top ten more often – although this will be much more difficult then last year with the level of talent. Joining him is Artem Petrov who finished fifth in the Italian F4 last year and raced in select races in the ADAC F4, in which he won the final race of the season at Hockenheimring. Petrov looks solid and he will hope to try and push for the top ten overall on occasions. There are is also the possibility of ADAC F4 racer Sophia Floersch racing for VAR in 2018. She has tested privately with team in Portugal and was also present at the European Formula 3 official test at the RedBull Ring. It would be fantastic to see her in the championship and has shown great speed throughout the last three years in which she has raced in the Ginetta Junior Championship and ADAC F4. Hitech GP return with an all-rookie line-up, albeit a strong one. Leading the charge is 2017 BRDC Formula 3 Champion, Enaam Ahmed who proved far too dominant for his competitors last year taking a massive thirteen wins out of a possible twenty-four as well as five further visits to the podium. He has also looked mightily fast in testing as has his teammate Alex Paulo who joins from racing in Formula V8 3.5 and the All-Japan Formula 3 Championship where he finished third. With experience in the F312 car, Paulo will certainly be a driver to look out for. Both drivers will most certainly be competing for rookie honours and as Jake Hughes proved last year, the Hitech car is quick and capable of winning races. Joining the two of them is Brit Ben Hingeley. Hingeley has had an interesting route up to this point and was in fact the 2015 Formula Jedi Champion. He finished third last year in British F3 with four wins and competed in several EuroFormula races and managed a respectable eleventh despite only competing at three weekends. He will look to his faster teammates for guidance this year but don’t rule him out for 2019. Completing the grid is F3 team Ma-Con who will field ADAC F4 graduate Julian Hanses who finished eleventh with one win to his name. It'll be a tough year for both him and the team, but as the season progresses, they should be able to push up the field. The calendar is similar to last year, albeit with a much later start as the WEC/ELMS Silverstone round has been pushed back from April to August. This means the series will start on the narrow and historic streets of Pau, culminating in the Pau Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon. This will be a tricky start for most of the drivers, although the graduates of the Formula Renault Eurocup have all competed there. Next the series begins its support of the DTM championship and have three rounds at Hungaroring, Norisring and Zandvoort. It's then on to the formidible Spa-Francorchamps circuit supporting the Blancpain 24 Hours before arriving in the UK, mid-August to support WEC. By this point, we should have a clear idea of who the big players will be and perhaps a better evaluation of a potential champion. The series then moves to Misano for the first time in the series history, joining DTM there as a support race. It's then the classic end to the season with Nurburgring (where Norris took an immense wet race win in the first race last year), RedBull Ring and the finale at Hockenheim, where one of these talented drivers will be crowned 2018 Formula Three Champion. Final pre-season testing will occur at Misano on 10/11 April. Expect the Prema drivers to be quick most notably Mick Schumacher and Marcus Armstrong who have both raced in Italian Formula 4. Sebastian Fernandez should be one to watch for too, as he won all three races at Misano last year in F4 and shown good pace already this year in testing.
All Formula 3 races can be streamed from either the fiaf3europe.com website or from their YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfAxcQdW6mxRiZY-EjH4Axw.
Photo Credit: theodoreracing.com, motorsport.com, formularadpida.net, @VARmotorsport, benhingeley.uk, Thomas Suer
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AuthorKieran Deaville - Motorsport Enthusiast Archives
April 2018
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