Callum Voisin wound up clear of the pack to end Formula 3 testing fastest of all on a 1:39.031 for Rodin Motorsport. The Briton fitted the Hard tyres near the end of the session to secure top spot on a day affected by wet conditions and Red Flag stoppages.
Tim Tramnitz of MP Motorsport and TRIDENT’s Rafael Câmara followed in second and third places after late laps of their own, after the latter finished the morning session quickest.
MORNING
It was a damp start on the final day with wet Pirelli tyres fitted on everyone that went onto track. Martinius Stenshorne was the quickest in the very early stages on 1:45.844.
The Red Flags were waving with 15 minutes gone as Ivan Domingues spun into the gravel at Turn 5. Once his Van Amersfoort Racing car was recovered, the session resumed but a second Red Flag followed shortly afterwards. This time it was MP Motorsport driver Bruno del Pino in the gravel at the same corner while further around the lap, Charlie Wurz had stopped at Turn 9 in his TRIDENT.
Running got back underway and Nikola Tsolov carried on from where he left off on Day 2, taking the top spot as the first driver to go beneath a 1:44. His 1:43.631 put him 0.7s clear of Louis Sharp in P2, before the Rodin Motorsport driver became the third Red Flag of the day, stopping at Turn 4. After his car was removed from the track, testing went back to green with two hours to go.
It wasn’t long before the next Red Flag stoppage, as DAMS Lucas Oil’s Matías Zagazeta spun into the wall out of Turn 9. Once his car was brought back to the pitlane, the morning session continued as the clock ticked towards halfway.
Noah Stromsted and Tuukka Taponen improved their times to go second and third for TRIDENT and ART Grand Prix respectively, while Rafael Câmara slotted into fourth ahead of Sharp at the halfway point.
Laurens van Hoepen improved his time to move himself into second position, 0.159s down on Tsolov’s table-topping effort from earlier just before a fifth Red Flag came out. Domingues was stopped at Turn 10 and required help to escape the gravel trap.
With his car back in the pitlane, the green light resumed running with little over an hour left of the morning segment.
VAR’s Théophile Nael was next to break into the top five, going third just before van Hoepen lifted himself above Tsolov, 1:43.623 the new time to beat. Nael obliged, recording a 1:43.298 for the top spot.
Into the final 15 minutes and there was more change at the top as Câmara put his TRIDENT in P1 before bettering his own time to a 1:42.570.
The personal bests began to flow as the session reached the chequered flag, Stromsted made it a TRIDENT 1-2, while Callum Voisin lifted Rodin up to third.
Joshua Dufek put Hitech TGR fourth ahead of Nael in fifth, Tsolov in sixth and Martinius Stenshorne in seventh. Roman Bilinski, PREMA Racing’s Brando Badoer and Nicola Lacorte of DAMS Lucas Oil capped off the top 10.
AFTERNOON
Voisin led a Rodin 1-2 in the opening stages of the afternoon on a 1:44.533, 0.290s ahead of Bilinski. Stromsted then went 0.3s quicker to top the times with half an hour run, P1 with a 1:44.178 for TRIDENT.
Nael was the cause of the first Red Flag in the afternoon segment, coming to a halt on the main straight by pit exit. His car was recovered and the session resumed with two hours to go.
A second Red Flag came with just under half the session to go, with DAMS driver Christian Ho and Rodin’s Louis Sharp in the gravel at Turn 5, both having run off the road separately.
They were hauled from the gravel and recovered to the pitlane, and the session went back to green flag conditions with an hour and 20 minutes to go.
A third Red Flag of the afternoon arrived as the DAMS of Nicola Lacorte the driver in the gravel at Turn 5. His car was recovered and proceedings got back underway.
Sharp was the next driver to find a big improvement with a 1:44.483, a time matched exactly by Câmara moments later. The former wasn’t finished as he went fastest on a 1:43.885, before the Brazilian driver went again, but couldn’t quite match the benchmark, going up to P2, just 0.026s down.
Noel León was the next to run off the road at Turn 5, bringing out the Red Flags. The PREMA Racing driver’s car was recovered and the final 20 minutes of running resumed.
Personal bests from Voisin, Stromsted and Câmara followed, with the latter immediately down to a 1:42.611 to regain top spot. Rodin’s Sharp cut the gap down to 0.151s to go second fastest on his next lap, while Nael put his VAR third in the order, a further 0.020s adrift.
Nael went again and put himself half a second clear of the pack before Voisin dipped into the 1:41s on Hard tyres. Câmara restored himself to the top on Wet tyres until Tim Tramnitz put MP Motorsport top of the pile on a 1:40.887, running the white-walled Hards.
Voisin had time for one final lap and a 1:39.031 was comfortably good enough for the top time of the day.
Tramnitz and Câmara rounded out the top three, ahead of the Campos duo of Mari Boya and Inthraphuvasak. Bilinski and Sharp ensured all three Rodins were in the top 10 in sixth and seventh. Nael, Stromsted and Stenshorne followed in eighth, ninth and 10th places respectively.
Formula 3 returns to action for Round 1 of the 2025 campaign around the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Australia from March 14-16.
Formula 3 Media | Photos: Formula 3 Media
