Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli resumed his position as Formula 3’s championship leader after finishing on the podium in Barcelona’s feature race. Feeder Series spoke with Fornaroli about how crucial this finish was for his title campaign.

By Tori Turner

The Italian driver took his fourth podium of the season in Barcelona, becoming the driver with the most podium positions in the championship so far. His performance in both races  allowed him to gain an advantage over his fellow title contenders. He was able to gain a total of 20 points across the weekend, the most out of the top three.

Whilst he was able to gain five of those points during Saturday’s sprint, it was the feature race where he showed exactly why he deserved to go back to the top. Having qualified for the race in sixth two days previously with a time of 1:28.672, he was in a good position to score points in the race.

Fornaroli’s race began with him gaining a position off the line, showing why a fast reaction and a perfect start can really make or break a driver’s race. He would then remain in fifth, proceeding to manage his tyres until an opportunity arose for him to overtake Nikola Tsolov around the outside of Turn 1 on Lap 22.  

After taking fourth, he began to chase down title-rival Luke Browning for the final podium position. On the final lap, he was able to repeat his move around the outside of Turn 1, battling for the position until Turn 3 where he was finally able to get ahead.

“The feature race was very important for me because it allowed me to score a lot of points compared to the other championship contenders,” he told Feeder Series about the importance of his result.

Despite leading the championship for the second time this season, Fornaroli is the only driver in the top six to have not yet won a race this season. He had been challenging for the win at his home race in Imola when an issue with his engine caused him to drop back, denying him his first victory. The first Italian race also saw him finish outside the points for the only time this season, making him the second most consistent driver on the grid in terms of points finishes this season. 

This consistency of his results has assisted his title campaign this season, but Fornaroli believes that it can be hard to maintain these performances across the calendar’s twenty races. 

“F3 is one of the toughest championships you can race in,” he said. “So of course, to be competitive is very tricky because you battle with very high-level drivers. Especially also in qualifying, you have to deliver a very good lap to always stay in the top five as well as in the races.”

One of Fornaroli’s strengths across the season has been his performances in qualifying. He has only qualified outside of the top 5 in one round so far, and even then it was sixth. To add to his impressive results, he has also achieved one pole this season in Melbourne.

When looking ahead to his aspirations for the rest of the season, Fornaroli told Feeder Series that he does not place winning a race as his number one priority.

“The main goal looking forward to the season will be again to score as many points as possible, but without throwing away all the good things we are doing now and taking all the possibilities I can take.” 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency