DIFFERENT NAME, SAME TUNE?
GP3 has become Formula 3 for 2019 and it has a new car, so where does that leave the teams and drivers?
The new Formula 3 season, which kicks off in Spain this weekend, is rife with change for junior drivers looking to make the step up to Formula 1.
The Formula 3 European Championship, won last year by Mick Schumacher, has disbanded and merged with the GP3 Series on the F1 package, the aim being to simplify the single-seater ladder. FIA Formula 3 is the outcome, although it would probably be better described as GP3.2.
The engine, gearbox, most of the rear end and a host of other parts remain from GP3 in the new F3 car, as the new series is run by the same organisation headed up by Bruno Michel, who also runs the Formula 2 Championship. GP3’S F1-support slot remains too so, for the first time in a long time, F3 teams and drivers will be regularly on the F1 circus’s doorstep.
It means that what we actually have is something very similar to GP3, with a new car – complete with a halo – and a few added teams merging from the defunct European series. It raises the
“ONE NAME KEEPS CROPPING UP AS TITLE FAVOURITE. STEP FORWARD 20-YEAR-OLD LEO PULCINI”
question, what is Formula 3 supposed to be? It was always the training ground for the fastest drivers. No overtaking aids like DRS, and reversed grids or degrading tyres for entertainment, like GP3.
While on paper F3 was the far better training ground, one thing the new series has kept is the standard of drivers and teams, and there’s no doubt that the eight-round series will be hotly contested. The competition is likely to be closer than the European series thanks to the new F3’s single-make, single-engine formula.
The addition of some strong teams will also make a difference as HWA, Hitech Grand Prix, Sauber Junior Team, Carlin and reigning F3 European champion squad Prema Racing all join FIA F3.
Despite the fact that most of the 30 drivers are in with a chance of podiums this year, one name keeps cropping up as the title favourite. Step forward 20-year-old Leo Pulcini.
The 2016 Euroformula Open champion struggled in his maiden
GP3 year with an uncompetitive Arden team, and a switch to Campos Racing in 2018 didn’t promise much more, given its results, albeit better than Arden’s. But Pulcini put his car on pole for the season opener at Barcelona and took fourth in the championship, which easily could have been third without a mid-season run of bad luck that included retiring with radiator failure after a visor had been ingested by his car’s cooling system.
A push to join F2 proved impossible for Pulcini as he – like many others – struggles for budget. But he’s in F3 to make the most of it and has switched to single-seater powerhouse Hitech Grand Prix, one of the squads coming over from the European series. The combination has hit the ground running. At the Barcelona pre-season test he was fastest on both days, and the work that he and the team have been doing on track has been noticed.
When asked if the title is possible this year, Pulcini says:
“For sure. I just think about myself and my driving, because
I’m very confident and very happy with how my team is working. Also, my experience is paying a bit.”
His Red Bull-backed team-mate Juri Vips is highly rated, but appeared to struggle to match Pulcini in testing and may need a short period of bedding-in this year. That said, testing isn’t the fully finished canvas and he will be one to watch through the year, after taking the fight to Prema (while at Motopark) in European F3 last year.
Prema has impressed with how quickly it’s got up to speed despite it – and two of its three drivers – having no experience in GP3. In fact, it was the two drivers without the GP3 background who impressed most, with Ferrari juniors Marcus Armstrong and Robert Shwartzman both topping the times during testing.
Armstrong is arguably the hot tip of the two. He’s also picked out Pulcini as the one to watch, but don’t be surprised to see the Kiwi at the top of the timesheets from the word go this year.
“I would almost say he is the favourite heading into Barcelona,” says 18-year-old New Zealander Armstrong. “He’s very experienced and he’s fast as well. I think he will be very strong. But there’s not going to be a situation where someone runs away with it – the competition is really high. My target is to learn and progress as much as I can this season. It’s my third full season in cars. I always want to improve. In terms of results I’m always extremely ambitious…”
Shwartzman, backed by SMP Racing as well as Ferrari, is not about to roll over and let Armstrong run away with it either. “I think I can be stronger than him,” says the bullish 19-year-old Russian. “Of course, I cannot guarantee it – everything can happen in races.
“But I feel confident and I know what
I’m capable of. Yes, sometimes Marcus can be faster than me and a bit ahead, but I tend to rely on stability and use it. Moreover, I had better pace and speed during the test session. So, I hope that our battle this season will end in my favour.”
The pair will first have to do something that happened only three times in nine seasons in GP3 – become a driver not from ART Grand Prix to win the drivers’ title.
ART hasn’t had the headline times in testing, but that’s usual from the squad that’s backed by Alfa Romeo F1 team boss Frederic Vasseur, and which won drivers’ (with Anthoine Hubert) and teams’ championships in GP3 last year.
What it has done is sign a versatile line-up. ART’S answer to Pulcini is David Beckmann, who had a slow start to his maiden GP3 campaign in 2018 with Jenzer, but a mid-season switch to Trident was followed by a run of results that would have secured runner-up spot in the championship had the first half of the season gone the same way.
He’s joined by Formula Renault Eurocup champion Max Fewtrell, and Fewtrell’s
“SOMEONE IS NOT GOING TO RUN AWAY WITH IT. THE COMPETITION IS REALLY HIGH”
fellow Renault junior and 2018 title rival Christian Lundgaard. Fewtrell may have grabbed the headlines by taking the crown, but Lundgaard was the top rookie in a series that usually takes two seasons to win. So their battle will be intense, and Lundgaard appeared to have the upper hand in testing.
The team has lost a number of personnel, including championship-winning engineer Christophe Boittin to HWA
(see panel), as a result of the new F3 teams poaching staff with
GP3 experience. But that’s happened before and the team will no doubt be at the front at Barcelona this weekend.
Of the other existing GP3 squads, Trident failed to set any hearts racing in testing, but that doesn’t mean the perennial frontrunner won’t be in the mix. It has retained 2018 race winner Pedro Piquet, son of Nelson, who’ll be joined by Finn Niko Kari, who spent last year at MP Motorsport. Either driver could challenge at the front, while Devlin Defrancesco has more to learn after switching to GP3 midway through last year.
With so many drivers capable of taking the title, competition is going to be intense. And with the cars so close together, Pulcini reckons there will be one element that’s key to the race weekends this year. “I think qualifying will be the most important thing,” he says. “If you do quali well, you have done 80% of the weekend. We are 30 drivers and almost 30 drivers are on a similar pace. If you start in the first five positions you have almost done all the weekend.”
Prema team boss Rene Rosin adds that apparently minor things will be important this season, as there’s so little margin for error. There’s also less track time in testing and on race weekends in FIA F3 than there was in European F3. So the drivers and teams coming over from the old series will have just one practice session, and onto qualifying before two races.
“It will be a fight already in Barcelona, 30 cars all close to each other,” he says. “You need to get all the small details done if you want everything to go perfectly. You need to nail everything and not do any major mistakes.”
There are also key elements relating to the car that will be important. In the past, DRS has been restricted to six uses in the feature race and four in the sprint, and the leader can’t use it. In FIA F3 this year, unlimited use will be allowed, similar to F1 and F2, providing you are within a second of the car in front heading into the DRS zone.
The other change is the Pirelli tyre, which has been modified slightly. It was expected to degrade even more and be harder to manage than in previous years. But Pulcini remembers last year’s tyre well, and says: “It’s not a big difference. The tyres are almost the same – they have just changed how the tyre has worked in terms of temperature. For me, when we have soft tyres, there will be thermal degradation and not tyre degradation, so we have to control the temperature.”
As the temperatures at the pre-season tests were quite low, managing the tyres could become a much bigger talking point as the heat rises through the season. The GP3 drivers will have the advantage, but the best always adapt and learn quickly.
Fundamentally, the car is very similar to the GP3 racer it replaces. That’s the opinion of a veteran at this level, EX-ART driver Jake Hughes, who lines up with HWA this year. “It’s the same engine, gearbox, drivetrain, brakes, everything like that,” he says. “It’s a different monocoque, front suspension and aero. It feels like a GP3 car still – it’s really recognisable with the engine and the way the brakes feel.
“IT FEELS LIKE A GP3 CAR STILL – IT’S REALLY RECOGNISABLE WITH THE ENGINE AND THE BRAKES”
“That said, it has stepped up a bit.
The car feels like it has more aero in high-speed corners and similar at lower speed. Mid to high-speed it feels more capable. It feels very similar, but it does feel like a step up with the aero.”
That doesn’t mean the ex-gp3 teams are going to run away with it. The increase in front-end suspension set-up options means the old squads can’t just carry over last year’s GP3 platform. So it comes down to which team gets on top of the car the quickest and optimises the set-up for each track. For that, the best teams will always rise to the top. And it’s the same for the drivers. They will have to adapt, make changes and deliver in a very small number of laps to be in with a chance.
The field is wide open at the top, and whatever happens it will be an entertaining spectacle, even if it is the F3 purist’s worst nightmare.