ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato scored his first Formula 3 victory in Saturday’s sprint race in Monza, finishing ahead of Freddie Slater and fellow Japanese driver Hiyu Yamakoshi. Feeder Series spoke to the podium finishers in the post-race press conference to find out how they handled the chaos on track and what they learned for the feature race.

By Tori Turner

The drivers who eventually occupied the podium places were not the obvious choices for victory. Indeed, in the first three laps of the 18-lap contest, all of them ran outside the top five, each working their way up the order through a combination of speed and savvy as mistakes and mechanical issues befell the original frontrunners.

When the race began, reverse-grid polesitter Brando Badoer initially kept his position heading down to Turn 1, though teammate Pedro Clerot piled pressure on him from the very beginning. Fernando Barrichello lost fourth place to Alessandro Giusti, whilst Ernesto Rivera moved up to sixth from eighth.

On lap two, Badoer had a poor exit heading out of Ascari, running wide. Clerot swooped past before the pair reached the Parabolica. Badoer lost a further position on the next lap when Tuukka Taponen passed him at the same spot.

Heading down to Turn 1 at the start of lap four, Barrichello eyed a move on Badoer and moved to the inside as Giusti went to the outside. When he moved back towards the middle, however, Badoer squeezed him in defence, leading to contact between them and Taponen on the outside. Barrichello’s left rear was badly damaged, the wheel dislodged and slung over his car as he headed down the escape road to stop the car. Taponen followed him down the escape road, having sustained damage that left him running but down in 29th. 

Giusti inherited the lead amidst the chaos ahead of Clerot and Rivera, with Badoer sitting outside the top three in fourth until he headed into the pits for a front wing change. A safety car period had neutralised the field by this point, lasting until the end of lap six.

At the restart, Kato went around the outside of Turn 1 to pass Rivera for third. Moments later, yellow flags signalled an issue further back in the field, with Maciej Gładysz tumbling down the order with a slow car and parking up through Curva Grande. 

On lap eight, Mattia Colnaghi locked up heading into Turn 1 and almost struck fellow Red Bull junior Rivera. Both Kanato Le and Théophile Naël – running 15th from 28th on the grid – ran wide at this point before a virtual safety car was brought out to aid the retrieval of Gładysz’s car from the lap before.

Racing quickly resumed on lap nine with Clerot passing Giusti for first around the outside of Turn 1, enabling the Brazilian to return to the lead once more – but he did not remain there very long. Smoke began to pour out from the back of his car at the end of lap nine and he pulled to a halt just before the Turn 1 braking zone. 

As he struggled with the mechanical issues, Gerrard Xie appeared to lose his brakes and failed to slow down approaching Turn 1, clipping the side of Michael Shin’s car. Xie flew across Turn 1 as a result, his car going airborne before he crashed down onto the tarmac and landed in the barriers at Turn 2. Both drivers retired from the race instantly, resulting in yet another safety car.

Shortly before racing was temporarily halted, Slater, who had made it up to sixth place from 12th on the grid, passed Colnaghi to move up into the top five.

The safety car was brought in at the end of lap 13, with Giusti controlling another early restart to remain in the lead. Rivera ran wide at Turn 1, cutting across the chicane after attempting a move on Kato. This allowed Slater to slip through for fourth, though Rivera initially remained close before Slater pulled away and amassed a sizeable gap by the start of the next lap.

On lap 15, Kato passed Giusti into Parabolica and snatched the lead of the race. Yamakoshi and Slater passed the MP Motorsport driver on the next lap to slot themselves into the podium positions even though the Briton dipped his wheels onto the grass on the start-finish straight. This manoeuvre began Slater’s attempt for another victory on lap 16, and he passed Yamakoshi for second around the outside. The Japanese driver took back the position down the inside of Turn 1 at the start of lap 17. 

“That wasn’t ideal,” Slater said about his trip into the grass. “I didn’t fancy mowing the grass at Monza. At the end of the day, it was four wide. The slipstream is so powerful. All three of us were coming and it was always going to happen. It’s pretty normal stuff like that. I wouldn’t say it looks spectacular on TV, but the car is pretty okay. I just joined back on. When you’re four-wide, no one really knows exactly where everyone is. I tried to get back in and managed to do so, picked it off at the end and managed to walk away with a P2.”

Both Slater and Giusti passed Yamakoshi down the main straight on the final lap, but the Frenchman cut Turn 2 and lost momentum, with the Van Amersfoort Racing re-passing him at the Roggia chicane.

“I had good luck,” Yamakoshi said. “Every time I just drive through everybody, so I didn’t do much thinking today. Obviously, we had a lot of options, we had a lot of simulations of what’s going to happen, what can happen to us and how much pace we have. How much simulation we did is like what we have now.”

With Slater too far back to execute a move, Kato crossed the finish line 0.521s ahead of the Trident driver to take his maiden victory in F3 and ART Grand Prix’s second this season after Gładysz inherited the Silverstone feature race victory. He also set the fastest lap of the race to take home an extra point.  With Yamakoshi joining him on the podium, this race marks the first time two Japanese drivers have shared a podium in championship history, inclusive of predecessor series GP3.

“I’m feeling amazing,” Kato said. “It’s just incredible. I’m speechless to be honest. From P9, I knew that there was a good opportunity to overtake here in Monza. Monza always has a lot of opportunity to overtake in the front. This car was amazing for the race and it was really enjoyable to drive for the race.… The last couple of races we were quite struggling with the performance so I’m just happy with that.”

Despite making up 10 positions throughout the race to secure his eighth podium this season, Slater faces a very different challenge in tomorrow’s feature race, which he starts from pole position. As it stands, no driver has ever won a race from pole position in Monza in F3.

“It’s a cool stat that I’m aiming to break that for sure,” Slater told Feeder Series. “We just have to play it out and see what happens. It’s Monza at the end of the day. You saw what happened in this race, the ebb and flow throughout the race where people are dropping back and coming forward. It’s always very chaotic, so it’s going to be just as important to what we did today. We have a good car underneath us; we just need to get a good start and just manage from there and see where we end up. 

“It’s going to be important to be consistent, very clean driving and try to keep the momentum as well at the front. That’s what made the race more chaotic today, was the momentum at the front was always defending, going backwards, and it brought more people in, and that meant there was more chaos and drama. Tomorrow is going to be really important for the front guys to keep going and get away.”

Piloting a new-look AIX Racing car, Yevan David executed a standout drive from 17th to fourth, passingGiusti on the final lap for his third points finish of the season. Colnaghi finished sixth ahead of Rivera in seventh, who slipped backwards after running in the podium positions mid-race. Deligny pulled himself into the points to finish eighth after starting 19th, whilst Lacorte finished ninth. Bruno Del Pino came home 10th for his first point since the Spielberg sprint race.

Naël narrowly missed out on scoring points in 11th after making up 17 positions throughout the race. Teammate Ugochukwu also failed to score points, finishing 14th after starting 23rd. The American’s gap to Slater is now 19 points entering the feature race, in which they will start 22 grid spots apart.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency