Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Trident leads the way in the FIA Formula 3 Championship after round one, even though the team’s best result was a third place.
Leonardo Fornaroli, Sami Meguetounif and Santiago Ramos scored 38 points between them at Bahrain, with Fornaroli fourth in the standings after making the sprint race podium and coming seventh with fastest lap in the feature race. Finishing fourth and fifth in that race put Meguetounif and Ramos sixth and ninth in the standings.
Fornaroli is a proven F3 talent with a pole and three podiums from 2023, while his rookie team-mates came ninth and 11th in last year’s Formula Regional European Championship. Meguetounif took a win and five other podiums from 59 FRegional races, while two third places are the best results of Ramos’s single-seater career.
All three drivers are targeting becoming 2024 FIA F3 champion.
“We were expecting to have a good pace after the test we did here a couple of weeks ago, so it was not surprising [to be high up],” Ramos said to Formula Scout at Bahrain after qualifying fifth, sandwiched between Meguetounif and Fornaroli.
He thought he had “some chances to win” and “to score some proper points”, but emphasised his focus was on the “long run” of the season rather than “finding the trophy” in round one.
“We need to be fighting for the championship, for sure. At the moment we’re an underdog, I would say. We didn’t look so strong on testing, but I think we’ve proved so far this weekend that we have the possibilities to fight up front and it’s just a matter of being consistent and staying always there during all the races.”
Meguetounif was frustrated to “spend too much time killing my tyres trying to pass one driver” in the sprint race, which restricted him to 10th place, but was happy “qualifying was strong” and that he “learned a lot” from his debut so felt ready to perform in the feature race.
“For the season, I want to fight always at the front. I have a car to win, so I cannot target P10, I have to target the front,” he told Formula Scout. “That’s my goal, to not do mistakes and be consistent, and deliver. Deliver always with the car I have.”
He emphasised “in that learning phase we still need to deliver if you want to fight for the championship” and that being a rookie was no excuse for losing: “We have to win and learn at the same time.”
After the feature race he had further frustrations about missing out on a better result, making “too much [mistakes] to be on the podium”. Overall though he was satisfied his results put him 12 points off the championship summit, and with his improved tyre management in the longer feature race, and vowed to be on the podium in round two.
Fornaroli credited “a big step on tyre management” since 2023 for his podium, and is targeting similar results in upcoming races to bolster his title ambitions.
On-site interviews by Roger Gascoigne