F3'24 🇮🇹⚔️: Formula 3's farewell fight

If you didn’t watch Formula 3 this year, you may have missed out on some pure racing. 30 drivers all with something to prove, all looking to graduate up the ranks to Formula 2.

That’s the deal for the drivers, while for fans, it’s a chance to enjoy more racing at the weekend, and an opportunity to spot some of the stars of tomorrow. You don’t have to go through this step on the ladder to succeed - Max Verstappen never raced in the series and Mercedes’ latest hope Kimi Antonelli skipped F3 to go straight to F2. But increasingly, this is the conventional route for modern-day F1 drivers to start their global careers.

Currently on the elite grid, there are just two drivers with a full season in F1 who also went up via F3. Oscar Piastri (who was also the first race winner to also drive in modern-day F3) and Yuki Tsunoda. You’ll see Jack Doohan join this list with Alpine too, and Liam Lawson, Logan Sargeant and Franco Colapinto are also here.

Ollie Bearman joins Haas after climbing the ladder in 2025 via an audition at Ferrari, so there is a counterpoint to say that this pathway is better-suited to drivers from the far side of the world to where F1 does most of its racing, but as well as often being the first step of the global pathway, once you’ve conquered the national and regional championships in your teens, Formula 3 also gives the driver the realisation that they cannot control everything.

With 30 drivers packed onto a grid, and several of them probably thinking they deserve to already be in F2, you get drivers going for gaps that - to be polite - are ambitious moves. This means extra work for the safety car. An 18-lap sprint in Imola, for example, this year had four safety cars.

Monza 2024 is another example. There is a championship battle between some very talented young drivers. The eventual winner of the championship did so without winning a race all season. Italian Leonardo Fornaroli finished second in Melbourne and Monza, took five other podiums and only finished outside the points twice. You don’t have to win in Formula 3 to win Formula 3, but you do have to be consistent, and that’s what he did, although it was a close run fight.

Fornaroli and his compatriot, the Alpine-affiliated Gabriele Mini. Behind them in the Championship was Williams Academy driver Luke Browning and 17-year-old Red Bull Junior Arvid Lindblad. Christian Mansell (no relation) and Ferrari-backed Dino Beganovic also scored more than 100 points this season.

But it was the two Italians at the front who stayed in the fight around their home track, with the Prema and Trident garages getting the calculators out to make sure their man knew what was needed. After the sprint race, Fornaroli scored four points to Mini’s two, giving the Trident driver a three-point lead. Mini would have to finish ahead of his rival in the feature race, and do so high enough up the field that the point gap wouldn’t matter.

And it looked like this was how it was going to go. While Sami Megatounif checked out in front, Mini and Fornaroli progressed their way up the pack, with Mini getting past his rival for second and enough points to win the title.

Christian Mansell deserves praise here too. The Australian driver found himself in the middle of the battle and was a fun extra in the battle, being the equivalent of the ladder in a wrestling match - just as important as the wrestlers without being the focus in this particular race.

Megatounif took the chequered flag and then this happened in the embed…

The motorsport overtake of a Hollywood film - final corner, final race, final chance. Fornaroli sent it past Mansell, allowing Mini to win the battle, but not the war as going third was enough points to seal the championship.

Then it all got a bit anti-climactic…

Imagine if Mini had won the title, only for it to be taken away for a technical infringement.

Fornaroli, who grew up an hour’s drive from Monza, took the title and with it, the “beneficiary” of a rule that means he can’t drive in Formula 3 any more. Despite not having a driver academy to back him, he’ll become the 39th graduate of F3 to step up to Formula 2, joining Invicta next season, who are leading the Teams’ Championship in F2 with Kush Maini and McLaren junior Gabriel Bortoleto, the latter being linked with the one remaining F1 seat on the grid at Sauber.

With the championship over, this won’t be the last you see of these drivers this season. F2 is still going, and Fornaroli is the only driver to have a 2025 seat confirmed at F2. Some of the drivers I’ve mentioned will finish this season in Formula 2, with the worse-performing (and sometimes less well-financed) drivers being pried out of their seats for a younger rookie.

Then in F3 you get the silliest of seasons as drivers compete not just on pace and potential, but also on finance, as teams take in income in exchange for a seat. It means you can’t throw in team orders in F3 unless it’s under exceptional circumstances, and even then, the driver may well still say no.

And Formula 3 gets its turn for an exciting new makeover from 2025 with a new car.

Unveiled at the Monza weekend, the battle between Fornaroli and Mini was a fitting farewell to the Dallara F3 2019 car, as a new, sleeker, F2/F1-style chassis takes over.

This will be great for the series. That extra year of familiarity will help the drivers transitioning from F3 to F2, ensuring they can be competitive quicker, while Formula 3 benefits from closer racing, and a potential shake-up from a more complex ground effect package.

The teams that understand the new regulations and can plug in a driver who can attack the circuits will do well in this new era, marking themselves out as someone to watch and step up into F2 and beyond.

It won’t feature all the current teams though. While costs are projected to increase for everyone, Jenzer are scaling down, announcing they won’t be part of the new era of F3, with Formula Scout reporting that DAMS will add F3 to their junior racing portfolio. Jenzer were Yuki Tsunoda’s team, and it is a shame to see a long-serving, GP3-era team leave.

However, with a thrilling championship battle to look back on, and a new car to look forward to, Formula 3 looks like it’s in a great place for 2025 and beyond.