THE DRIVER WHO PROVED ART WAS BEATABLE

While it is has produced top drivers, GP3 is more often associated with team domination. ART and Trident drivers won all but three of the 18 races in 2018, and

ART took the teams’ title eight times in nine seasons.

So you’d think it would be intriguing to take one of the drivers who’s impressed from a minnow team and plonk them in a leading entry to see how they get on. Mid-season, that’s what happened when David Beckmann moved to Trident.

It was all very inauspicious at the time. The German hadn’t exactly set GP3 on fire with Jenzer Motorsport – although admittedly all of the Swiss team’s drivers had struggled. Furthermore, Beckmann had endured a poor 2017, his second in the Formula 3 European Championship, one year after impressing with a couple of podiums in his rookie F3 campaign. But what happened from the Hungaroring round in July onwards with Trident was astounding.

None of his new team-mates won feature races during the year, but Beckmann took two from his first three weekends with the squad, putting his team-mates with famous surnames – Giuliano Alesi and

Pedro Piquet – in the shade.

“On one hand it’s sad, because you don’t know what would have happened if I’d started the season with Trident,” says Beckmann.

“But on the other I think it’s good to show that I don’t get down because I have a bad season; I get another car, reset my mind and push again and it works.

“I think that’s what a proper racing driver needs to do – not get down because of bad results. It doesn’t matter how long you go on without a good result, you have to search and improve. It’s nice to show this.”

The best man to discuss Beckmann’s form is his team boss, Giacomo Ricci. The 2006 Euro and Italian

F3000 champion – who beat Marco Bonanomi, Vitaly

Petrov and Jerome d’ambrosio in the process – knows a thing or two about class drivers.

“Thank you to him, because since he joined Trident

ART became beatable!” says Ricci. “He is really good at adapting. Whatever you give him, whether the car is understeering or oversteering, he is able to maximise the peak of the tyres. Also in the race he is really consistent.”

A brilliant second half of the season has opened Beckmann’s options. A step up to Formula 2 down the line appears unlikely “because I don’t have the budget”. But his performances opened up the chance to take an ART Grand Prix F3 seat for next year. With its pedigree, he could be a strong title challenger.