GP3 review: Hubert’s ART attack
In the swansong season of GP3 before it becomes FIA Formula 3, the ART Grand Prix driver followed a consistent path to the crown
In its ‘final’ season, there was never a dull moment in the GP3 Series. Whether it was the cars being uploaded with the wrong software at Spa, the title contenders taking each other out at the Red Bull Ring, or two sons of Formula 1 greats dicing for victory on the historic Monza circuit, there was no let-up in its final year before the series gets a new car and is renamed the
FIA Formula 3 Championship for next season.
The series has been spoiled for talent in recent years, with
George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Esteban Ocon all winning en route to F1. Yet in 2018 it wasn’t clear who would emerge as title favourite and take the mantle as a star of the future.
Nobody proved as dominant a force as Russell or Leclerc, and consistency proved to be the key. And on that score there was no rival to eventual champion Anthoine Hubert. In 18 races he was on the podium 11 times. In the feature races, which are by far the better measure of talent compared to the reversed-grid races on Sundays, he was off the podium just once. And then it was only after he was taken out by his team-mate.
Nikita Mazepin was not highly favoured coming up against second-year driver Hubert, having finished 10th in European Formula 3 the previous season. But he pushed ART Grand Prix team-mate Hubert right to the end and only a couple of errors hindered him as Hubert’s squeaky-clean run delivered his first major title. The fight between the two was intense, culminating at the Red Bull Ring at the end of June. Hubert was fired up after his first mistake of the season in the qualifying session the day before, when he went off the road, collected grass in his radiator and ended up starting 19th. He thought it might cost him the title.
But he was quickly up into the top eight in the race, before Mazepin dived up his inside at Turn 9 while Hubert in turn was trying to pass David Beckmann. Hubert took the racing line and
Mazepin had nowhere to go, clipping Hubert’s right-rear and sending him into a spin.
“Obviously we discussed what happened and we came to the conclusion that it was a racing incident. I had no intention of clipping Anthoine, especially as we were fighting for P9 and not a win,” said Mazepin at the time.
Things can get fraught when four drivers, in premium machinery, driving for the same squad, are closely matched. Callum Ilott, Hubert’s 2016 team-mate in Euro F3, claimed the points lead after his ART team-mates’ Red Bull Ring crash, while Jake Hughes spent the season hamstrung dealing with the Pirelli tyres, but still showed flashes of pace.
“The relationship between us, I have seen better in other teams,” Hubert says of the atmosphere at ART at the end of the season. “But it’s all right, we are professional and we managed it in the end. There has been tension, but in a team like ART where four drivers are fighting for the championship, I think it’s quite normal. The team helped us to manage it – we were smart and managed it better.”
Ultimately Mazepin lost the title due to a couple of errors, including crashing out at Sochi in September. He’d already lost
his pole for a track-limits infringement, and then crashed while challenging for sprint-race honours. That was costly; but he’d made his point, proving many wrong in his ability to challenge for the title.
The penultimate meeting in Russia also ended Ilott’s run.
A brake problem that wasn’t truly resolved until the Abu Dhabi finale meant a 13th and an 18th took him out of contention. Ilott’s Achilles’ heel has been that he can be too aggressive, or too reactive, causing himself problems in races. He was far more consistent in 2018, but he went too far the other way, as Hubert proved to be faster across the season. Third was all Ilott could salvage.
And that was close. Leonardo Pulcini pushed him after a brilliant season. He was 14th in 2017, but a switch from Arden to Campos seemed to work wonders. Pulcini was head-and-shoulders above his team-mates, taking two wins at the end of the season, but bad luck afflicted most of his year, with a gearbox failure and an errant visor blocking his radiator causing two of his DNFS.
Pulcini’s two-wins tally equalled that of the champion. But, as Ocon proved in 2015, it doesn’t matter how many victories you have if you wrest the crown. Hubert simply outfoxed the rest and delivered ART its fourth consecutive drivers’ title.