Camara clean-sweeps final day of Bahrain F3 test

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Ferrari junior and FIA Formula 3 championship leader Rafael Camara sent a warning shot as he topped both sessions on the final day of the Bahrain in-season test, recording the fastest time of the week.

Freddie Slater, testing for AIX Racing, was the first to set a representative laptime after seven minutes, before Christian Ho of DAMS, the Rodin Motorsport trio of Callum Voisin, Roman Bilinski and Louis Sharp and then MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz all claimed top spot as they crossed the line on their first flying laps.

Tramnitz’s time of 1m48.583s was already the fastest of the test up that point, and he stayed on top until Wednesday’s pacesetter Nikola Tsolov narrowly edged ahead for Campos Racing just after the half-hour mark.

Trident driver Camara then lowered the benchmark by three tenths of a second, posting a 1m48.252s which would stand through the rest of the session as the best time.

Tramnitz improved his time to finish second, within 0.086 seconds of Camara. Tuukka Taponen continued his consistent frontrunning pace for ART Grand Prix this week by going third in front of Alessandro Giusti, Noah Stromsted and Nicola Lacorte.

For much of the afternoon session the focus appeared to be on race pace, with Laurens van Hoepen setting a 1m50.421s around midway through to edge ahead of the early pace set by Martinius Stenshorne.

It was not until eight minutes were left on the clock that Rodin’s Voisin and Sharp took the times into the 1m49s, separated by just 0.003s in the latter’s favour, but their efforts were quickly bettered by Camara who went 0.8s faster, recording a 1m48.673s.

Voisin would improve his effort with four minutes to go to finish the session in second, 0.69s down on Camara. Camara’s team-mate Charlie Wurz took fourth ahead of the third Rodin driver Bilinski.

Combined day three results