Of the 30 drivers who competed in Eurocup-3’s opening round at Le Castellet, seven had switched over from GB3’s 2025 grid. In the Monza paddock last month, Feeder Series spoke to some of them to find out why they moved for 2026.

By Seb Tirado

After finishing sixth in GB3, Keanu Al Azhari joined Hitech’s new Eurocup-3 operation. In his first campaign of the year, the Emirati driver took the winter series crown – his maiden single-seater title – with two wins and five further podiums. The team finished third in a close battle with Campos Racing and MP Motorsport, seven and two points back respectively. 

But after his GB3 campaign, Al Azhari had an opportunity to move up to F3 for 2026. So why did he elect to make a sideways move with Hitech instead? 

“There was no point of rushing things,” he explained. “I wanted to fully prepare myself before stepping up to F3 and that’s why that decision was made. Also, it’s good to expand your experience as much as you can.

“The calendar is very fantastic this year. We go to some very amazing circuits, and the car has been really incredible to drive. It really prepares you properly for F3 in that sense.

“I learned a lot last year with the team, and we’ve obviously built a very good relationship now, and they put the trust in me to then go and win the winter series,” he added. “So I think it’s been a great decision. I’m really able to show who I am as a driver, and the team is able to prove themselves in a different championship.”

After winning at the season-opening event at Le Castellet and scoring a third place at the following round at Portimao, Al Azhari faced misfortune during the Italian rounds that dropped him to fourth in the standings come the end of the Monza weekend. But the Alpine junior returned to winning ways last time out at Silverstone, where he took his only GB3 win last year. He now returns to Jerez this weekend, almost two years to the day of his Spanish F4 victory at the same circuit.

Al Azhari is not alone in experiencing an Iberian homecoming upon moving to Eurocup-3. For Gianmarco Pradel, joining the championship means returning to the paddock where he made his European racing debut in 2022, the same weekend Eurocup-3 was unveiled. The Australian driver made the move over from GB3 and joined MP Motorsport, Al Azhari’s former Spanish F4 team.

Along with the opportunity to link up with the reigning teams’ champions, Pradel explained how the new-for-2026 Dallara 326 – which is built upon the traditional F3-style car run in Euroformula Open – was another of the key factors that attracted him to Eurocup-3.

“We knew at the start of the season that it was going to be good, and so far the car’s been fantastic,” he said. “[It’s a] very different philosophy to anything I’ve driven before. It’s very specific in what you need to do to get it to perform the best, but the car is great to drive. Really light, really chuckable, and the downforce level is fantastic.“

Pradel scored two wins and seven further podiums in 24 GB3 races last year and racked up a similar rate of success with one win and two further podiums in the Eurocup-3 Spanish Winter Championship’s nine races. In the main season, however, he had only taken a single podium, a third place in the Imola sprint race, and sits 10th after five rounds.

“This year we were really gunning to try and be up the front, definitely a lot further up where I am at the moment,” he said. “This year for sure so far has been below par for expectations, at least my expectations. So the second half of the season’s going to be a lot about trying to realise my potential and get back to where I deserve to be.”

Pradel is not the driver whose interest was piqued by the championship’s new car specification. Fellow Sydneysider and 2025 GB3 runner-up Patrick Heuzenroeder also pointed towards the increased performance of the Dallara 326 as one of his main draws.

“The Eurocup [has] way more downforce, a little less power [and] Hankook tyres, which makes a huge difference with the combined phase in the corners,” he explained. “And then GB3 is just a bit less thought out, if you know what I mean. You just get in the car and have to handle with what you can do.”

In the Tatuus MSV GB3-025 introduced to GB3 last year, Heuzenroeder took a victory at Zandvoort and four second places with Xcel Motorsport. The 20-year-old hoped to move upwards, but like countrymen Pradel and series champion Alex Ninovic,  he also sidestepped at the FRegional level, ultimately joining Campos Racing. 

“The goal was to step up to F3, but things didn’t quite align, so we thought to come to Eurocup and be with Campos, a really strong team in the junior series,” he said about his move. “You [should not] do three years in the same category, so to come across was a good option.”

Heuzenroeder currently sits ninth in the championship, one place and two points ahead of Pradel. Even still, he is seven positions further down from his 2025 GB3 placement, with only a single podium – his win in the Imola sprint race – to his name. 

“We had a lot of issues in the winter series that hampered the progress and track time,” he told Feeder Series at round four in Monza. “Which was fine, that happens, the main focus is the [main] championship anyway.

“And then we rocked up to Paul Ricard and unfortunately didn’t get to qualify because we didn’t have the engine start, so that was a very tough start to the campaign. Portimao and Imola have been relatively strong within the team [but] Paul Ricard was showing good potential. Hopefully we can extract a bit more of that.”

Ultimately, Heuzenroeder didn’t get too many more chances to do so. After taking a fifth-place finish in race two of the Silverstone round, he departed Campos. It is currently unknown if he will return to Eurocup-3.

Even the sheer size of the grid can be a motivating factor. Since the championship’s inaugural season in 2023, Eurocup-3’s grids have nearly doubled in size from an average of 16.625 entrants in 2023 to 30 so far in 2026. In the same timeframe, GB3’s grid sizes dropped from an average of 24.25 in 2023 to 20.67 so far in 2026, even recording a low of 16 at the Hungaroring last year.

With bigger grids often comes stronger competition, and indeed, GB3’s 2025 frontrunners have not had such an easy time of it in Eurocup-3. That overall challenge was a draw for Palou Motorsport’s Bianca Bustamante, who made tackling the larger grids one of her main objectives. 

“You can imagine that the racing’s quite competitive,” she said. “The boys definitely race hard! And racing around tracks like Imola and Monza where you’ve got very minimal room for error has definitely been one of the exciting bits. The racecraft is very cut-throat and there’s a lot of learning curves for that.”

So far in 2026, the Filipina driver has finished 25th in the SWC standings, with a best result of 13th in the Portimão sprint. This came off the back of a GB3 campaign she called ‘one of the toughest seasons of my career,’ one that resulted in her finishing 22nd in the standings and last of those who competed in every round. 

At Palou, she got both a fresh start and a reunion of sorts.

The team started a new technical partnership with Prema, who ran her in various F4 series in 2023 and with whom she took her first F1 Academy win at Valencia. It was that familiarity, she says, that influenced her decision to join Eurocup-3.

“The move was honestly great for me,” she said. “Being able to work with Palou Motorsport and Prema, the collaboration has been amazing. The amount of growth we’ve had this year is great.

“It definitely feels familiar, and I think that’s what racing has always been about. You’re constantly working with engineers and mechanics and even teammates, and having worked with Prema before I definitely know the guys and they know what they’re doing. The development we’ve had all season long developing the car, the driving, the data and overall how the team works [has been] great.”

The two series both return to action this weekend, with Eurocup-3 holding its sixth round of 2026 at Jerez and GB3 its seventh at Brands Hatch. They will then share a paddock for the first time for their respective season finales at Barcelona from 6 to 8 November.

Additional reporting by Marco Albertini

Header photo credit: Jakob Ebrey Photography and Fotocar13