Seven drivers entered the Monza Formula 3 round this weekend with a mathematical shot at championship glory – a showdown reminiscent of the seven-way battle that raged in 2022. How do the series’ top drivers reflect on the seasons they had? 

By Michael McClure

Tensions are high on the ground in the Monza paddock as F3 waits for its sixth champion to be crowned. The breakdown of points among the top contenders means that no matter what, the championship title will be decided in Sunday morning’s feature race.

Prema had already wrapped up the teams’ title at the last round in Belgium. They currently hold a 115-point lead over ART Grand Prix, and all three of the Italian squad’s drivers have a chance at taking championship glory.

The 2024 champion will also be the final one to accomplish the feat in the series’ Dallara F3 2019 chassis, which has been used for all six seasons of the championship. The new car, expected to be called the Dallara F3 2025, will be revealed Saturday morning at 11:30 local, after the sprint race.

Feeder Series previews the title battle at stake and talked to some of the drivers in contention for the championship fight. Read their thoughts and our insights below.

1. Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident, 129 points)

F3’s current championship leader has not won a single-seater race since September 2021, yet he enters this weekend with a realistic chance of sealing the title without a victory. If he finishes both races, he will also extend his nearly three-year-long record of completing every single-seater race he started.

While his extraordinary consistency has kept him at or near the top of the standings, it is his race performance itself that Fornaroli believed has improved compared with his 2023 season – which translates into better race results.

“Compared to last year, I think the big step was made into the races, because quali pace last year was very good,” he said. “This year, I didn’t change anything in the approach on there, but I completely changed my approach going into the race going also into tyre management, mainly. I did some little mistakes during qualifyings this year, but so far I’m happy about the development I did compared to last year.”

Fornaroli picks the Melbourne and Barcelona race weekends as personal highlights. At Melbourne he took pole and came home second in the feature race, while at Barcelona three months later he finished seventh in the sprint race and third with the fastest lap in the feature. That second place was his best finish of the season.

“I’m very happy about the Barcelona race weekend because there I showed that the big step to the races was made. Also I’m quite happy about Melbourne because also there already, I did a very good step forward. Them two are my favourites.”

Fornaroli is not affiliated with a junior driver programme. During the press call on Thursday in which he, Luke Browning and Gabriele Minì spoke, he said he had yet to receive any offers to join one.

2. Gabriele Minì (Prema Racing, 128 points)

Prema Racing second-year Minì, a member of the Alpine Academy, has one win at Monaco, putting him already above Fornaroli’s total. His feature race podiums in Melbourne, Spielberg and Silverstone and a sprint race podium at Spa are additional highlights in a campaign that has produced 12 total points scores.

In 2023, Minì took two wins, but he only had nine points finishes total. Costly errors, such as a five-second penalty in Bahrain for a starting grid infringement, left him missing crucial points. He attributes his improvement in form this year to greater consistency – including his run of finishing in sixth place six times this year.

“I think this year, especially compared to last year, probably consistency,” he said when asked what improved the most. “We’ve been many more times being up there rather than we’ll be doing a bit [of a] mistake and we get all in quali or in races, and [we] have been more consistent also with finishes.

“For sure, it will be easy in some locations, can be even more aggressive in some races. But so far, that’s all you want to play the championship on.

“This weekend, it will be all to play for. For sure, if there is an attack, especially if it’s another championship contender, you want to try and not crash but send it a bit more than usual, while in the early stage of the championship, you kind of want to avoid that and try to gain as many points as possible. So I think that’s the only point where I can still work on.”

3. Luke Browning (Hitech GP, 123 points)

The winner of the Bahrain and Spielberg feature races, 22-year-old Browning has broken through in 2024 after a difficult first campaign in F3 that saw him take just one podium.

The Williams junior also dominated the Macau Grand Prix weekend in November in F3 machinery, giving him a crucial boost and recognition on the international stage. He and fellow podium finisher Minì, who kept him honest throughout the weekend, were thus widely expected to resume their battle for glory when the main F3 campaign began.

Preceding that Macau weekend, Browning, who is known to have little budget of his own, had scored only three points in the final five rounds. And having been announced at Hitech only on the eve of the season, the 2022 GB3 champion said he even had doubts about whether he would finish the season.

Browning told Feeder Series at length about what changed from 2023 to 2024:

“I think maturity, really. Last year was a difficult year for me because I was almost thrown in it. I didn’t do any testing. I didn’t expect to be in Formula 3. And to be honest, at a point I was standing, I didn’t think I was going to finish the season either. I’d never raced on any European tracks before. It was very, very new for me coming from UK racing, so the learning process of last year was almost just turning up and learning the circuit.

“Imagine turning up to a new circuit that you’ve never raced on before in Formula 3 and having one set of tyres in free practice before going to quali, and that set of tyres last the optimum performance of one lap. It’s not easy to get on top of it.

“And last year, I think we showed our pace because often by the end of the weekend, we were very quick. Which is why the feature races, we’d come from the back to the front, or we showed outstanding performances in the wet here and there – maybe in Spa in FP, for example [Browning went fastest]. It was just I couldn’t put it together.

“That’s exactly what’s happened this year. That fusion between me and the team has really connected and it feels like we’re speaking the same language, whereas last year maybe my feedback was a bit disjointed. With me describing an entry to mid-phase, where exactly is that? If I’ve got oversteer on the entry, well, what’s your defined entry? Is it throttle, or is it coming off the brake? This sort of stuff has really helped this year.

“I’ve nailed down where and how to drive the car and what suits me and what’s been a disadvantage for me, and I think we’re on top of it, so I think these learnings have been massive this year.

“And I really feel I’ve stepped up as a driver, so it’s a real good foundation for the future.”

Proof of that stronger foundation came during the triple-header, when Browning bagged two poles and a feature race win in Spielberg.

“That Spielberg–Silverstone back-to-back weekend was pretty special. To take double pole, back-to-back poles, showed our pace as Hitech,” he said. “We won the Spielberg race in quite a dominant fashion, which for that track is very rare. I think we showed our pace. When we get to the front, we very rarely lose it.

“I think coming into Monza, that could be really important, the combination of being able to hang on in the race but being able to stick in the top five in qualifying. This combination could be pretty lethal. I think we’ve driven pretty well this year, but I have to say the standout moment might be that Spielberg feature race.”

4. Arvid Lindblad (Prema Racing, 113 points)

Lindblad is the sole rookie in the title fight and, having turned 17 earlier this month, is the youngest driver on the grid.

The Red Bull junior has been perhaps the revelation of the season. He took a sprint race win on debut in Bahrain, becoming the series’ youngest winner at 16 years and 206 days, but it was in the triple header that Lindblad really started to get the measure of his more experienced teammates.

He qualified second in Barcelona and finished first in the feature race, nearly five seconds ahead of Christian Mansell. The Spielberg weekend yielded only six points for Lindblad from seventh in the feature race, though he again made waves by qualifying within a tenth of Browning.

In Silverstone, he made history again by winning both the sprint and the feature race in FIA F3 – a feat only accomplished by António Félix da Costa in Hungary in 2012 under the series’ previous guise as GP3. He dominated a delayed sprint race after taking the lead at the first corner, then won the feature race in changing conditions after a tyre gamble paid off.

Lindblad has failed to score since then, leaving him adrift of Fornaroli by 16 points. If crowned, he will be the series’ youngest-ever champion by more than a year.

5. Dino Beganovic (Prema Racing, 100 points)

Sophomore driver Beganovic was the highest-placed returnee from the 2023 season and was expected to be a title contender entering 2024.

Being an experienced driver had previously favoured the 20-year-old Swede. In his sophomore season in Formula Regional Europe in 2022, he dominated the campaign, establishing a commanding lead in the first eight races by never finishing outside the top two and holding on until the finale.

But in F3 this year, Beganovic had a tougher time of it. A pole position in Bahrain went begging when he stalled on the grid for the feature race, and while he impressed with his feature race win in Melbourne, he was missing the headline-grabbing results that Minì and Lindblad achieved in subsequent races.

Beganovic returned to the podium in Spielberg in the feature race and followed it up with third in the sprint in Hungary and first in the sprint in Belgium last time out. But he only took one further points finish in the last four rounds – ninth in the feature race at Hungaroring – leaving him with only an outside shot at the title entering Monza.

Oliver Bearman’s ascension to F1 next year makes Beganovic in theory the highest-placed driver in the Ferrari Driver Academy ranks. But with fellow Ferrari juniors Rafael Câmara and Tuukka Taponen currently first and second in Formula Regional Europe and set to move up, Beganovic is in a precarious position in the programme.

6. Christian Mansell (ART Grand Prix, 97 points)

Mansell is the title contender with the slimmest chance of taking the championship. With a 32-point deficit to the championship lead, he realistically needs a feature race win, sprint race podium and little to no points for any of the top three.

Mansell, like Fornaroli, is still chasing his first F3 victory, having come close on several occasions. He opened his 2024 account with a second-place finish in the Bahrain sprint race and added runner-up finishes in the Monaco and Barcelona feature races in May and June.

Mansell says the Monaco feature race was his best performance this year.

“That was quite switched on. That was very, very good from me. I felt very, very comfortable being so close to Gabriele and then being so close to the walls, but it was just a very well put together race. I think we controlled the safety car restarts as best as we could, tried to get as close as we could. But in all honesty, it was a very well put together race.

Those results proved he could keep pace with respective winners Browning, Minì and Lindblad even if he ultimately lacked the final pace advantage over them. They also indicated a marked improvement from his 2023 performances, which combined to give him 12th in the standings with two podiums.

So what does the 19-year-old Australian make of his season compared to expectations?

“This is going to sound a bit funny, but I don’t really set goals,” Mansell answered candidly. “I jump in the car and do the absolute best at what the car is that day. The result will either come or it won’t.

“In F3 the cars are very up and down. Some teams are very much suited to different tracks and different layouts, configurations, weather, and sometimes the driver’s just better that day. I just sort of try to get the maximum out of myself in the car, and that usually births a result,” he continued.

“To be honest I don’t know if there’s much more room to sort of grow. Because it’s second year [of] F3, I should really be on top of most things. But I’d say as far as mental clarity, just being very calm because everything is much more.

“It’s almost like in your first year of F3, it’s very tunnel vision and then the second year, the world sort of opens up a little bit. I’d say just mental clarity and being very open with yourself – like questioning yourself rather than what everyone else is doing. Questioning yourself because really that’s the only thing that I can control.”

Bonus: Oliver Goethe (Campos Racing, 94 points)

Until Wednesday, Red Bull junior Goethe was still eligible for the championship title, but his ascension to F2 with MP Motorsport means he will not score points this weekend. But the lateness of the decision meant he still had the mindset of racing in F3 as he approached this weekend.

Goethe had a remarkable run of consistency in the opening 12 races, scoring points in every race. That streak included first- and second-place finishes in Imola – a victory taken away then reinstated because of confusion over penalties – as well as a podium in the Barcelona sprint race.

“I would say Imola was for sure my best weekend. I won the sprint race from P6 and I came second in the feature race from P7,” he said. “Getting a first and second in F3 with the reverse grid is a big achievement. It was definitely a race that I had a lot of pace and made the most out of.”

Compared with his 2023 season, when he took points in just six races en route to eighth overall, his 2024 F3 campaign has been markedly different for Goethe.

“I feel like I developed on my consistency. Last year in F3 with Trident, I was very inconsistent. I had a lot of good results but many non-points-scoring finishes and stuff like that. So this year I was sort of there every weekend, there or thereabouts,” he said.

“Qualifying needed a bit more work in some rounds where I didn’t manage to qualify top 12, at least putting me in the reverse grid positions. So that cost me a bit this season. That’s something I’m working on to be a bit more consistent. But I’m happy with the races.”

Goethe missed the top 12 in five of the nine qualifying sessions this year – a blow to his chances in a series in which most drivers consider Friday’s session to be of the utmost importance. In races and in the overall points, that deficit ended up costing him a chance to pose a more serious title threat.

“My goal this year in F3 was to fight for the championship. I was always sort of in the fight but not exactly where I wanted to be,” he said.

“It’s been a super tight year. It’s been ups and downs. I was consistently in the points, not making so many mistakes, but sometimes lacking that last final bit to fight for feature race wins, for example. Really, I would have liked to be more in the title fight than I actually was, but I did the best I could, and it’s still been a decent season overall.”

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Qualifying for the Monza F3 round begins today at 15:00 local, with the 30 drivers split into groups of two based on car numbers. Even-numbered cars will go first, while odd-numbered cars will follow at 15:21. The sprint race is at 9:30 on Saturday followed by the feature race at 8:35 on Sunday.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency