Split by only 17 points heading into the season finale, the year-long back and forth between Callum Voisin, Alex Dunne and Joseph Loake for the GB3 title endured all the way to the last race of 2023. The ‘Donington Decider,’ as it was coined, saw Voisin emerge as champion, but only after a robust challenge from Dunne, who was seeking his second single-seater title in as many years.

By George Brabner

Arriving at Donington Park, the weather was set to play a key role in how the round would unfold. Running on Thursday was limited, as red flags and a constantly wet-dry track made mistakes easy in the week’s first three test sessions, and after a relatively unproductive day, Friday’s action would be cancelled entirely due to poor weather conditions. 

But despite such limited track time ahead of the season’s most crucial races, it was still Voisin in the metaphorical driving seat of the championship fight from the weekend’s outset. After escaping round seven still at the head of the standings despite not finishing on the podium at all, the Rodin Carlin driver took an impressive double pole position in qualifying, followed closely by championship rival Dunne in both the session’s first and second-fastest lap times.

Saturday morning’s wet 20-minute qualifying was pivotal for Loake, who could only muster two starting positions on the fringes of the top ten. Albeit just over a tenth of a second behind Dunne who would start on the front row, the JHR Developments driver had his weekend made immensely difficult by starting far from the two drivers he needed to outscore. Ultimately, it was here where his championship assault unravelled.

How the races developed

Starting from first in race one, Voisin bounced back from round seven with a perfect lights-to-flag victory in a contest dominated by safety car interruptions. Dunne finished third having been pipped by Matthew Rees, although was given few opportunities to find a rhythm and move forward by the numerous aforementioned stoppages. Nonetheless, Voisin’s lead, then sitting at 26 points, was still very much closeable, especially with the pair starting alongside each other for race two.

Onto Sunday morning and it was crunch time for Dunne. Starting second with Voisin just ahead, it was imperative that the Irishman won if he wanted to enter the final race of the season with any semi-realistic chance of snatching the championship away. However, should he finish third or lower and Voisin won, Voisin would be crowned champion on the spot.

And so Dunne did exactly what he needed to do. With an audacious dive down his inside at the final corner after Voisin went wide a corner prior, Dunne barged past his championship rival, narrowly avoiding contact and snatching the race lead away. 

Dunne went on to take his first victory on British soil in 2023 and close the gap in the standings, but Voisin remained calm. Not needing to be anywhere near as aggressive since he still had the championship lead, it wasn’t so important that he won race two, shrugging off momentary defeat with knowledge of the bigger picture despite his disappointment – a key characteristic of Voisin’s season-wide mentality. 

As we reached Sunday afternoon and the climax of the year, the dynamic between Voisin and Dunne from the beginning of the weekend continued. The responsibility still laid on Dunne’s shoulders to make a difference and bargain on Voisin getting caught up in an incident somewhere else in the pack. Even if Voisin didn’t score, Dunne still had to reach seventh position from 22nd on the grid to become champion on countback by virtue of having more race victories. 

Whilst Dunne was able to progress into the top ten, Voisin shadowed him almost entirely, keeping his nose clean and making it into the top twelve which guaranteed him the title. The race would eventually end behind the safety car after a total of just five laps of green flag running, crowning Voisin champion with an 18-point lead over Dunne.

Voisin’s triumph

Having just secured a meaningful first single-seater title in only his third season in car racing, Voisin was understandably elated and jumped straight into the arms of his Rodin Carlin team that he has been a part of since his GB3 debut and embraced those closest to him fresh from the race.

Speaking to Feeder Series in the paddock shortly after the championship presentation, Voisin agreed that what has been key to his sophomore GB3 success has been consistently landing front-running results no matter the situation. He has scored nine second or third-place finishes across the 2023 season, as many victories scored by Dunne and Loake combined, underlining how he has always extracted the most from each weekend even when he has not been the fastest driver on track.

Clear from the results sheets, we have seen a completely different Voisin this year compared to who we saw on track in 2022. Measured and mature, he has barely put a foot wrong all year, which is not only in contrast to his more accident-prone self last season but is extremely rare to say of any driver after 23 races. 

Encapsulating the expected attitude of a second-year driver who has learnt from many of the mistakes he made as a rookie, Voisin echoed the idea that he has been driving more reserved this season than in the past. As the majority championship leader and therefore the driver with more to lose than the rookie hotshots snapping at his heels, he has often had the most to protect.

But despite its overarching positives, the season was not without its hitches. Voisin pointed to a rocky Zandvoort round as the most important weekend of the year alongside the title decider, where, having been put on the back foot by poor qualifying results caused by a collision with Michael Shin and the simultaneous success of Dunne and Loake, he felt the pressure to perform on a weekend he recognised as potentially pivotal for his championship challenge. Even when Voisin was the one who had to attack, he did enough to keep his lead intact.

All in all, the season finale seemed to summarise Voisin’s season to a tee. He delivered when it mattered, and even when he wasn’t the fastest driver out on track, he settled diplomatically for the next best result, never falling too far away from his title rivals and doing everything he needed to do to shift some of the pressure off his own shoulders.

Dichotomy of emotions

While photographers huddled around Rodin Carlin’s awning to capture the celebrations of the GB3 Championship’s latest victor, the Hitech Pulse-Eight camp communicated the contrasting side of motorsport in stark clarity.

A disgruntled Dunne was quick to leave the scene of the championship presentation where he was presented with his second-place trophy by MSV Chief Executive Johnathan Palmer, not partaking in any post-race interviews and heading straight back to the paddock. Leaving the circuit a mere 45 minutes after the chequered flag fell for the final time in 2023, the Irishman exchanged a few words with Feeder Series, giving an insight into his raw emotions.

Dunne labelled the amount of time incidents took to be cleared away over the course of the season finale as “a joke,” his feelings exemplified by the minimal number of clean racing laps in race three where he needed all the time he could get to try and pull away from Voisin and hope that he would drop out of the top 12. Even after race one where he finished third and didn’t have the pace to catch Voisin, he said on GB3’s TV broadcast that he was “watching the championship disappear further and further” every lap that the safety car stayed out.

He didn’t hesitate in dismissing the encouragement offered by taking five victories, either, stating, “I didn’t come here to finish second” – a blunt look into the mentality of the star-bound 17-year-old. 

In reality, Dunne has only added to an already impressive racing resume in his rookie GB3 campaign. His domination at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and Zandvoort stands out as two moments where he was at his best, showing the world everything he can do in a Formula 3-level car only two years into his single-seater career. But the potential for more podiums or race victories was there for Dunne, they just didn’t always materialise.

Loake positives-oriented

Qualifying was Loake’s ultimate undoing at Donington Park. Mere fractions from the top three, he was still plunged deep into the top ten where overtaking would be extremely difficult.

An incident with McKenzy Cresswell in race one, which Cresswell later explained to Feeder Series was caused by Loake suffering a snap of oversteer whilst attempting to take seventh place on the wet inside line of turn one, then hurt his progress from the very first racing lap of the weekend. From there, things didn’t get much better for the driver from Macclesfield, finishing eighth in race two and, once he was officially out of the championship fight, retiring from race three after another collision with Cresswell that was reminiscent of how they came to blows in race one, only with the roles reversed.

But, so frequently upbeat, Loake was keen to take the positives from his first season in GB3, even after having to make his way back to the paddock on foot. 

As his title-winning JHR Developments team, family and friends celebrated on the Donington Park podium with his third-place championship trophy held high, he spared a moment to talk to Feeder Series. 

Loake explained that whilst he was obviously unhappy to come away 67 points behind eventual champion Voisin, he has a lot to be proud of looking back on his season. Having embarked on a season in the GB3 Championship after a difficult second British F4 assault in which he finished fifth, his turnaround in performance has been spectacular, transforming into a front-runner with an impressive work ethic and wheel-to-wheel ability.

In fact, Loake revealed that he didn’t expect to be fighting within the top five at all this year, let alone challenge for the title, summarising his rookie GB3 campaign as far exceeding his pre-season expectations.

Whilst his future is far more uncertain than Voisin’s or Dunne’s, Loake certainly deserves the same opportunities in FIA F3 that his two championship rivals were offered by testing at Imola just days after the GB3 finale. As he outlined after round six at Brands Hatch, taking the GB3 title was a potentially key component of his future, however, with a long winter between now and the 2024 racing season – and the outcome of the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Young Driver of the Year Award yet to be decided – where he will be one year from now is still very much up in the air.

Header photo credit: Artie C Photo