Fornaroli fastest as F3 test ends on a slow note

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Leonardo Fornaroli led a Trident one-two in the final session of FIA Formula 3’s in-season test at Barcelona.

On a short run early on in the three-hour session, Fornaroli set a 1m28.444s that would end up going unbeaten as others focused on long runs.

ART Grand Prix and Rodin Motorsport were the first teams out on track, and Campos Racing’s Mari Boya and Oliver Goethe also took to the Tarmac early on. It was not until half an hour in that the circuit became busy, with the rest of the 30-car field heading out.

After long runs were completed there was then a period of inactivity halfway through the session. Jenzer Motorsport’s Charlie Wurz broke the silence one hour and 15 minutes from the end of the test, and had the track to himself.

MP Motorsport, PHM Racing, Campos and Rodin sent their drivers out for another run as the final hour began, and once again the focus was on long runs. There were a few drops of rain, but the rest of the teams thought it was worthwhile heading back out and so the track became busy again 10 minutes later.

Only Fornaroli and team-mate Sami Meguetounif, who were the top two on the timesheet, stayed in their garages and soon Boya, Jenzer’s Max Esterson and PHM’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak made their way back to the pitlane.

Esterson then headed back out, but like everyone else was unable to improve his pace as clouds rolled over and lowered the track temperature.

With half an hour to go there were 26 drivers embarking on long runs, and that number did not drop below 20 until 14 minutes later. Inthraphuvasak left it until there was 12 minutes left on the clock before finally returning to track, along with team-mate Joshua Dufek, but only got to complete a few laps before Dufek struck trouble in sector three and the session had to be red flagged six-and-a-half minutes from the end.

There was no restart, and although Fornaroli ended up fastest by 0.662 seconds it was the slowest session of the three-day test and only four drivers in the afternoon lapped sub-1m30s. Fornaroli also only did 14 laps, while 12 drivers did more than 50.

Afternoon session results