The 2024 Formula 3 season delivered yet another thrilling championship that ultimately went down to the wire. Feeder Series recounts four of the season’s most memorable moments, from backmarkers finding breakout success to the last-corner move that decided who would be crowned champion. 

By Tori Turner

Trident teammates touch in Barcelona

Trident were already 55 points behind Prema in the teams’ championship entering the fifth round of 10 in Barcelona. With Santiago Ramos and Sami Meguetounif first and second on the grid respectively for the sprint race and all three of Prema’s drivers starting outside the top 10, Trident had a crucial opportunity to make up ground.

The pair maintained that order through the first two laps, with Meguetounif remaining within a second of his teammate as he waited for the right time to make a move.

That moment came at the start of lap three, when Meguetounif dove down on the inside of Turn 1. But he didn’t have enough space to pass Ramos and lost control as he took to the grass.

When Meguetounif re-entered the track, the two Tridents collided, with Ramos sustaining a puncture and Meguetounif retiring on the spot from the damage. A safety car was deployed as marshals removed his car as well as the stranded cars of Callum Voisin and Nikita Bedrin, who stopped at the same place because of an unrelated incident.

Campos’ Mari Boya profited from the incident to take the lead and win his first F3 race at his home circuit. Ramos continued racing and came home 21st, while Meguetounif earned a five-place grid penalty for the feature race for causing the incident.

Lindblad’s double Silverstone success 

The Silverstone round will be remembered for the weather conditions that delayed the sprint race and enlivened the feature race – both of which Arvid Lindblad won.

The British driver had already made an impression on F3 in the first race of the season, which he won on debut, but his drives at his home circuit were what really defined his rookie season. Lindblad became the only driver in the championship’s history to win both races in one weekend as well as the first driver in the series from outside of Spain to triumph on home soil.

The British driver’s first win of the weekend – the third win out of four in his rookie season – came after the nearly nine-hour postponement of the sprint race. Lindblad qualified 11th Friday, placing him second on the grid for Saturday’s race. Having made a strong start, he took the race lead by outdragging polesitter Noel León and Matías Zagazeta into the first corner. Once Lindblad made the move, there was no stopping him for the 18 laps around his home circuit as he cruised to victory by 6.550 seconds.

Patience and the right strategy aided Lindblad’s incredible performance the next day in mixed weather conditions. The Prema driver switched onto slick tyres at the end of the formation lap while the majority of the grid opted for wet tyres. When a safety car was called at the end the first lap, a slick-shod Lindblad had already made it up to 20th, while he gained 12 positions on the third lap alone after the safety car restart.

On lap four, he passed Sami Meguetounif, Max Esterson and Leonardo Fornaroli to rise to fourth before the safety car came out again because of Sophia Floersch’s stranded car. During that safety car period, rain had started to pour once more, compromising his strategy.

Despite falling to 22nd in the order, Lindblad stuck with his slicks throughout the next safety car period, during which the rain stopped and the track began to dry. 

With the race now running to time, Lindblad’s tyre strategy finally swung in his favour with 10 minutes remaining. He flew past the drivers still on wets, and by the time the chequered flag was waved, Lindblad had made it up to second on track. Callum Voisin’s 10-second time penalty earned earlier in the race, however, promoted Lindblad to the race win, a reward for his composure and perseverance throughout the race.

AIX’s 1-2 finish in Budapest

AIX Racing inspired by winning their first-ever F3 race during the eighth round held in Budapest. Before arriving in Hungary, the team had barely scored points, let alone podiums. Sole points scorer Nikita Bedrin had done so on three separate occasions, though with no finishes better than eighth.

Bedrin and his teammate Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak set the team up for success during the qualifying session in Hungary, finishing 11th and 10th respectively. That put them second and third on the sprint race grid. 

Bedrin’s only competition for the win was Melbourne feature race winner Dino Beganovic, who started on pole and led the race until the second corner, where Bedrin made the race-winning overtake. Inthraphuvasak faced competition for third throughout the first half of the race, but he escaped from the pursuing pack’s clutches on lap 10 after Beganovic ran deep at Turn 2 while attempting to gain back first in the race and ceded second place to the Thai driver.

Bedrin crossed the line 1.560 seconds ahead of Inthraphuvasak, and the pair helped the AIX become one of only three teams across the 2024 season to score a 1-2 finish alongside teams’ champions Prema and runners-up Trident.

Bedrin went on to finish seventh in the feature race, securing his final points of the season. AIX could not repeat the success they found in Budapest that morning, but the team finished the season with all three drivers having scored points – an improvement from the previous year, when only Sophia Floersch did so.

A last-lap showdown

This article wouldn’t be complete without the very moment at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza that decided who would be crowned the 2024 F3 champion.

Heading into the final race of the season, four drivers remained in contention for the title: Lindblad, Luke Browning, Gabriele Minì and Leonardo Fornaroli. Over the course of the 22-lap feature, it came down to the two Italian drivers in a memorable championship battle. 

While Fornaroli had a perfect getaway from pole, he lost the lead to MP Motorsport’s Alex Dunne at the end of the first lap. He remained directly behind Dunne until the safety car restart on lap seven, when he made a mistake at Ascari and cut across the grass. The error dropped him from second to fifth in just one corner, putting him behind championship rival Minì.

This mistake almost defined the outcome of the championship, with Minì ahead of Fornaroli on a tiebreak. But as Fornaroli began to recover over the remaining laps, Minì dropped back to fifth, one position behind the Trident driver. By lap 18 of 22, Fornaroli and Minì had moved up to second and third respectively.

On the penultimate lap of the race, the title swung in Minì’s favour again by a single point after both he and Mansell overtook Fornaroli, but Fornaroli wasn’t willing to give up. On the final lap, the Trident driver risked it all in an attempt to overtake Mansell at the Roggia chicane, but both ran wide.

After the Ascari chicane later in the lap, Fornaroli only had one chance remaining to make the move for third place. Heading into Parabolica, the Italian driver lunged to the inside and squeezed past Mansell, crossing the finish line as champion by two points despite Minì’s efforts.

After the race, Minì was disqualified for having all four tyres below the minimum pressure requirements. That gave Fornaroli a 23-point gap in the final standings and rendered the on-track battling futile, though the excitement it generated will linger forever.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency