Prior to the Monaco Grand Prix, new McLaren junior Martinius Stenshorne joined the Feeder Series Podcast to talk about his new home – and the unfortunate first day of his tenure.

By George Sanderson

It was announced 16 May that Hitech GP Formula 3 driver Martinius Stenshorne had become the newest member of the McLaren Driver Development Programme. In a dual announcement, McLaren also revealed that fellow F3 driver Alex Dunne had joined the programme as well.

Stenshorne joined the Feeder Series Podcast following that weekend’s F3 round supporting the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix and shared how he felt about joining the Woking-based team.

“It’s really a dream come true,” he said. “It’s something we’ve been working on for quite some time now, so it’s good to finally announce it!”

A months-long dream…

The move had been in the pipeline for a number of months before coming to fruition, Stenshorne explained.

“I know from the end of last year that they were in the talking stage,” he said. “I’m not the one doing it myself. I have, of course, All Road Management, who helps me with these kinds of things.”

Keeping the negotiations between his management team and McLaren enabled Stenshorne to focus on racing – which quickly brought rewards.

In the Melbourne sprint race, just his third race in F3, he claimed his first victory. He spoke to us six weeks later, on 2 May, about his first two weekends in the series.

By the time we published the interview on 14 May, the McLaren news was on the horizon. But at the time he spoke to us, not even Stenshorne was aware of how far, and how well, talks had gone.

“I heard a bit about it but not too much, so I knew a couple of weeks before Imola started. We went to McLaren Technology Centre on Monday before last week [13 May], so before the Imola race weekend, and visited there and had a look at the nice workshop, or factory, let’s say.”

And a nightmare first day

Stenshorne had perhaps the most dramatic start possible to life in papaya. The same day he was announced to have joined McLaren, Stenshorne was also handed a ban from the F3 weekend at Silverstone later in the season, as was Alpine junior Nikola Tsolov for the F3 Spa round.

The stewards at Imola deemed the two drivers had violated article 10.4 of the 2024 F3 sporting regulations by racing on circuits on the F3 calendar without the FIA’s and F3 promoter Formula Motorsport Limited’s authorisation. Stenshorne had competed in GB3’s second round at Silverstone back in April.

As disappointing as the news of the exclusion may have been for the Norwegian, Stenshorne said “it’s something you can’t really be too sad about”.

“It was organised by the team around me in the end, but we didn’t have the administration around the outing. It wasn’t complete,” he explained.

“I think if we would’ve asked, we probably could’ve been allowed, but that’s what we missed and that’s the rules, so that’s how it is.”

At Imola, Stenshorne also endured a “difficult weekend”, qualifying 17th and falling back to 22nd in a sprint race that was “not so good”. Despite the struggles, he showed progress by finishing 10th on the road in the feature race, only to be handed a 10-second post-race time penalty that dropped him out of the points.

“We learned a lot from the weekend and I also had some nice overtakes in the feature race,” Stenshorne said.

Big opportunities ahead

Whilst his start to life with McLaren may not have gone exactly to plan, Stenshorne is aware of the big opportunities ahead of him.

“I went to Woking on Monday last week,” he tells us. “Being there just experiencing everything is really cool.

“They’re going to help me a lot in many different aspects to make me be as complete of a driver as I can be.”

Stenshorne said he was “looking forward to start the journey” – except for one reason.

“The less good thing maybe is that I don’t stay as much at home, so I’ll be more on travelling!”

Perhaps his motorsport-agnostic cat, Zeus, would agree.

You can hear the rest of our chat with Martinius Stenshorne in the 22 May episode of the Feeder Series Podcast, hosted by Jim Kimberley.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency