Leonardo Fornaroli’s pole position from Prema drivers Gabriele Minì and Dino Beganovic may have been the headline result from F3’s Friday running in Melbourne, but the talk of the town was a controversial collision between ART Grand Prix’s Nikola Tsolov and MP Motorsport’s Alex Dunne at the end of practice a few hours before.

By Michael McClure

With three and a half minutes to go in the practice session Friday morning, second-year driver Tsolov, 17, was setting a fast lap when he came upon the slower car of rookie Alex Dunne, 18, exiting the high-speed chicane at Turns 9 and 10 of the Albert Park Circuit.

Dunne had been weaving to generate heat in his tyres, and the fast-approaching Tsolov braked suddenly and closed his DRS flap in response. As the cars’ speeds converged, Tsolov went around the outside of Dunne, who kept to the inside, off the racing line, beyond the right-hand kink after the corner.

The Bulgarian driver then swerved back into the path of Dunne without having cleared the Irishman’s car, and the two made contact at high speed. Tsolov continued straight ahead and jerked over to the racing line, while Dunne lost control of his Dallara F319 and went into the inside wall.

His car ground to a halt trackside with significant damage to the right-front corner, bringing out the red flag. Neither driver was hurt in the incident, and Tsolov returned to pit lane.

The Alpine junior spoke to Feeder Series in the paddock shortly after the incident.

“I was a bit confused,” he said. “I arrived on a push lap and I think the MP [Dunne] was weaving, so I didn’t know where to go to get past him because he was on a cool lap or something.

“I went to the left side and then I just felt a hit under my rear tyre. So I think it was just a bit of a misunderstanding, but nothing intentional from any side. I think it was just a bit unfortunate.”

When asked if he hadn’t realised Dunne was there, Tsolov said, “I knew he was there, but then I suddenly just felt the hit. I didn’t do anything strange. I was just on the racing line.”

As for whether the contact was deliberate, Tsolov said, “I have no intention against him. There’s nothing to win in a practice session, so I wouldn’t do something like that.”

Tsolov given grid drop; Dunne reprimanded

The stewards investigated the incident at 10:30 local and issued their verdict at 13:42 local, 18 minutes before F3 qualifying. The result: a reprimand for Dunne for weaving, and a three-place grid penalty for Tsolov for the next race in which he participates, set to be Saturday’s sprint race.

The verdict for Tsolov read, “On the approach to Turn 10, Car 9 (Dunne) was on a prep lap and Car 25 (Toslov [sic]) was on a push lap. Car 9 stated that he was unaware of the approach of Car 25 as he was not actively looking in his mirrors for any approaching cars and apologized for the lapse.

“Car 25 stated that his lap was affected by Car 9 and he wanted the Driver to be aware of his presence and that he was being impeded. Car 25 deviated from his normal racing line to drive close to Car 9 to highlight his presence. He unfortunately misjudged this action and collided with Car 9.

“Having considered the matter extensively, the stewards determined the actions of Car 25, while unintended, caused the collision that was completely avoidable. The Stewards, therefore, impose a grid drop in accordance with previous precedents.”

Tsolov also received two penalty points on his record, his first two of the 2024 season. A driver must accumulate 12 over a season to receive a race ban.

Dunne’s penalty began with a near-identical explanation of the incident and ended with the following conclusion:

“Having considered the matter extensively, the Stewards determined that Car 9 unnecessarily impeded Car 25 and potentially may have affected his lap. They reminded the Driver of the need to exercise better judgement and awareness during practice and race sessions.

“The Stewards also felt the actions of Car 9 led to the following collision and retirement of his car. As such, the Stewards deem it necessary to elevate the penalty for this particular infringement to a Reprimand.”

Per a new rule introduced for 2024, a driver who accumulates five reprimands in a season will earn a five-place grid drop for their next race.

Tsolov qualified sixth and is set to start from that position for Sunday’s feature race. His penalty will drop him three places for Saturday’s sprint race from seventh on the grid to 10th. Dunne is set to start 17th for both races.

Drivers’ reactions to the incident

Feeder Series asked the top three drivers after qualifying for their takes on the incident and the resulting penalties. Perhaps unsurprisingly, none were especially forthcoming.

“I don’t want to put the finger on Nikola, but – I really don’t know what to say. I don’t want to put myself in a bad position,” Trident’s Fornaroli said. “What he did is not very good, it’s not ideal, but yeah, I don’t want to judge this.”

Tsolov’s Alpine Academy stablemate Minì said, “It’s things that can happen in racing. Of course, it’s not ideal, but I’m sure everybody is working their hardest to avoid this. I’m sure the stewards, everybody, did their best to judge this and take the providing actions. In the end, they are for sure better than us in this, so I’m sure they did the right thing. Hopefully stuff like this doesn’t happen again, but once again, it’s racing and everybody’s doing their best.”

Ferrari junior Beganovic said he had seen the incident but did not have comments on it.

How drivers manage emotions in and outside the car

Tsolov and Dunne’s collision and its potential causes sparked broader questions in the post-session press conference about emotion management and mental well-being in junior single-seaters. How do the top three, who all raced in F3 last year, handle their emotions in similarly challenging situations?

DB: “I keep them to myself, and then they stay in my car. Again, I have nothing to comment about the incident. It’s up to them, so yeah, I don’t want to comment on someone else’s stuff.”

GM: “You always have emotion, a lot of emotions going on. If you do a mistake yourself or if you have a really close fight with someone, you can always – maybe something can go wrong. Of course, it’s not always you’re happy that the car is running. Sometimes you can be angry. Sometimes you can have different emotions going on. But in the end, we are all trained in order to keep our emotions for ourselves, and if there is anything to say or to do, you just take your time, think about it and then when you are cooler you take, you do something different.”

LF: “This one was tricky. It was a very stressful qualifying, but you know, I was always in a very good position with every lap. Of course, I wasn’t very stressed, but just before the last lap where I knew I had only one chance, of course it wasn’t easy to manage. But as I learned from Bahrain, where I did a mistake in my last push because I didn’t manage my emotions well, I was just trying to say as calm as possible driving without over-pushing, without taking any stupid risks.”

Feeder Series then asked the top three about the people they have around them for mental support in and outside of the paddock and how they help each of them.

LF: “My family is always there to support me. Also my physical trainer. Every time before the race weekend, we are working a lot to try to stay as focused as possible and without the struggling mind, trying to stay also as cool as possible. I think we did a very good improvement compared to last year.

GM: “Me personally, I’m working with coaches from the gym from Formula Medicine. I always go there to train. They really help me a lot. They help me to my career back in karting, back in 2018. We’ve always been working with them together. In the end, in the actual race weekends I have some people around me supporting me and helping me, but in the mental side, you kind of want to work this outside the track and not when you’re at the track, let’s say. You already have to know what to do. Once again, we come back in the situation of the bubble, so you have to try and stay. Even when there are things around to do, you have to try and work as [much as] possible, stay in that kind of concentrated mood and never let anything go for the case. It’s not something you do on track, but it’s something you really need to be prepared for.”

DB: “I’ve got people I’m working with outside of the track. Obviously, Ferrari, who do driver academy, but also my personal mental trainer. We’re working very closely on that because it’s a big aspect, the mental side, in our sport but also in every other sport. Also, in daily life, it can affect a lot. It can be your biggest friend but also the biggest rival – it’s your mind, so there’s a lot to gain. And also, from last year, I started working on that, and I see differently the benefits and the advantages from being in a good mindset and good mood. Just feeling good makes a big difference, and also having the right people around you. So it’s a very big factor for me, and I’m very happy that I’m closely working with this.”

Additional reporting by Steven Walton

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency