F3 drivers are back on track for pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit ahead of the season opener in two and a half weeks. How are they and their teams using the three days of running to prepare for the 2024 season? Feeder Series asked a few team leaders.

By Daniele Spadi

The Bahrain test marks the first time the F3 paddock is back together since the two-day post-season test in Imola on 23 and 24 October.

Unexpected rain on the first day meant that the morning session, topped by MP Motorsport rookie Alex Dunne, was not representative, but once the track dried, Van Amersfoort Racing rookie Noel León was the surprise pacesetter in the afternoon and the fastest driver of the test so far.

Charlie Wurz of Jenzer Motorsport led the morning session on the second day, while Hitech GP’s Luke Browning led MP’s Tim Tramnitz and Dunne in the afternoon as many teams focused on long runs.

For most teams, including MP, preparation for the 2024 season began all the way back at the 2023 season finale in Monza last September.

“We start preparing basically from when the chequered flag dropped in Monza last year to now,” team manager Jeremy Cotterill told Feeder Series in a media roundtable after the first day of the test.

“We start testing drivers in the post-season tests. [Bahrain] is the only test before the first round, but three days of testing a year should level things up quite nicely across all our drivers.”

MP differed from many teams in that only Tramnitz entered all three of the 2023 post-season tests in Jerez, Barcelona and Monza. Reigning Italian F4 champion Kacper Sztuka drove only in the Imola test, while Dunne, who was announced for MP last week, appeared in none. The GB3 runner-up did get experience of the F3 car at Macau while racing for Hitech.

The team thus has an inexperienced lineup compared to Prema, which fielded 2024 drivers Dino Beganovic, Gabriele Minì and Arvid Lindblad in all tests and counted both Beganovic and Minì among its Macau F3 entries.

Team principal René Rosin said, “Our 2024 season started already in post-season testing last year and here now in Bahrain. It’s a mix of stuff, but the preparation really never ended. It started last season after Monza and it’s continuing going on a step-by-step process.”

Though many drivers, rookies included, already took part in post-season testing last October, this test is their first rendezvous with the machinery they will drive for the rest of the year. That means they must adapt quickly.

Hitech GP team principal Oliver Oakes will count on Macau Grand Prix winner Browning to capitalise on his experience with the team in F3 last year. Hitech will also field two rookies in Martinius Stenshorne and Cian Shields, who finished second in their respective campaigns in FRECA and Euroformula Open.

“I think it’s always everybody from the outside finds it quite odd to say that we all started so long ago, but it is the way of F2 and F3 now that the drivers need to get in and deliver quickly, and I think that’s something interesting,” Oakes told Feeder Series.

“The rookies will find out stepping into this level. They don’t get millions of laps like you do in sort of the lowest [categories], so we get to see who’s quite talented to get up to speed quickly.”

Mechanics, engineers and and other team personnel, particularly new members, also use testing to acclimatise to their 2024 environments. A good early understanding of the car is crucial to building an early lead in the championship, as Gabriel Bortoleto did last year with Trident.

Some of that comes down to the culture within each team, Rosin said.

“We have to mix [preparing the cars] with bonding the team together,” he told Feeder Series. “It is possible sometimes [that] mechanics are new, engineers are new, but it’s always a mix of things. We are dedicating these three days to maximise and prepare for what is in front of us that is coming in a couple of weeks in Bahrain.”

Header photo credit: Sebastiaan Rozendaal / Dutch Photo Agency