After a chaotic sprint race that saw Ollie Goethe take his second win in the series following a dramatic turn of events, the drivers’ focus is now on Sunday, where the lights will go out one more time for the feature race. Feeder Series spoke to Saturday’s top three about the difficulties ahead of them and the importance of making moves right from the get-go.

By Daniele Spadi and Tori Turner

Saturday’s sprint race saw a grand total of four appearances from the safety car, minimising the racing laps around the circuit for the F3 drivers. The chaos began on the opening lap when Mari Boya made contact with Tommy Smith, causing the first safety car as the Campos driver was left stranded in the gravel trap after the Villeneuve chicane. The bunched-up field would then cause issues upon the restart; a domino effect of further incidents and three subsequent safety cars, plus one VSC, followed.

Turn 7, Tosa, came out as the most notorious corner of the sprint. Two separate incidents – Charlie Wurz tagging Callum Voisin on Lap 5 and Luke Browning going off on Lap 17 – ended with the drivers being stuck in the gravel. Between these two episodes, race control jumped to release the safety car onto the track on Lap 13 when Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak stopped at the final corner.

Track changes

Ahead of the series’ second visit to the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, notable changes had been made to the circuit prior to the race weekend, especially in regards to runoff areas and kerbs.

Firstly, the presence of asphalt was reduced in order to enforce track limits more naturally; this also led to the addition of more gravel at various points of the track such as at Piratella, Acque Minerali and Variante Alta. New double kerbs were also installed at the majority of turns around the circuit.

However, it must be said that none of the corners that were altered were the site of any of the race’s incidents; in fact, drivers looked to be very cautious when taking on the corners that had been modified in any way. However, the nature of the track – as well as the natural consequences of a bunched-up field – led to the sprint race having the least amount of green flag running so far in 2024.

An added difficulty for Sunday

With a high probability of more safety cars during Sunday’s feature race, Feeder Series spoke to the top three drivers about how they would handle a repeat of today’s instances. “I mean it depends where you are or how the safety car happens,” Tim Tramnitz told Feeder Series after finishing in third – before being promoted to second after post-race penalties. “Of course, if there’s contact in front of you and one gets stuck in the gravel, you can always be a bit lucky. But, I would say as I said, the most important thing is trying to stay out of trouble and manage your tyres, and then you’ll see where you are.” Van Amersfoort Racing’s Noel León was on the same page, too. “I will be P12 for tomorrow, so it will be for sure difficult.”

The Mexican also spoke about the start being a very important part of the race. “It really depends who you are with for T1,” he told Feeder Series. “Some drivers, they search the turn line or something, so it makes it even more difficult. But yeah, we will see tomorrow and after T1.”

Race winner Goethe echoed León’s thoughts when speaking of tomorrow’s race start. “I think [starting at the front] helps on every track, to be honest, but especially here if there’s going to be more safety cars it’s better to start towards the front. I’m starting in a similar position to what I did today, sixth [today] and tomorrow seventh – I’ll try to do a similar race. We’ll see, to be honest, but if I get a good start like I did today, then I can fight towards the front for sure.”

From what we’ve seen from the sprint race, it won’t be an easy task for drivers to keep it clean – especially given the fact that this year’s grid seems extremely bunched up pace-wise compared to other seasons.  “I mean, everyone is racing at the limit,” Tramnitz told Feeder Series. “Also tomorrow everyone will race at the limit, so I think that these are just things that can happen in the end. So, yeah, let’s see, the target would be staying out of trouble for sure.”

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency