Campos’s Goethe quickest in opening post-season FIA F3 test session

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Campos Racing’s Oliver Goethe led the way in the first session of the FIA Formula 3 post-season testing at Jerez.

There was very little track activity in the first hour, with initially only Carlin duo Zane Maloney and Callum Voisin and Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli heading out.

After 14 minutes just six drivers had triggered the timing beam, with Maloney’s early 2m07.921s benchmark putting him 0.188 seconds ahead of team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu.

By the 37-minute mark some more drivers had set outlaps, and 10 minutes later the majority of the 30-car field had at least left the pits. But when MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz went third fastest, 6.768s off the pace, he was only the seventh driver to set a laptime.

Maloney lowered the pace to 1m54.592s after 49 minutes, and MP’s Emmo Fittipaldi became the eighth driver to complete a lap. Ugochukwu then beat Malony by 0.015s, with Voisin setting a 1m56.262s to return to third place.

Two minutes later Maloney set a 1m34.129s, and the timesheet featured a ninth name as MP’s Hadrien David headed out. Carlin filled the top three places as Voisin recorded a 1m32.794s and Ugochukwu set a 1m33.938s to move ahead of Maloney.

Voisin kept on improving, and ended the first hour on top with a 1m32.023s. Maloney was 0.199s behind, Fittipaldi was 1.186s back in third and David shuffled Ugochukwu down to fifth.

Maloney reduced Voisin’s advantage to 0.045s at the start of the next hour, before the track finally started to get busy.

Jenzer Motorsport’s Charlie Wurz immediately went into third place once he headed out, with team-mate Matias Zagazeta going seventh fastest.

After 67 minutes finally more than half of the field had completed more than just an outlap, and a few minutes after that PHM Racing’s Taylor Barnard went faster with a 1m31.999s lap. Hitech GP’s Martinius Stenshorne had just gone 15th fastest with a 2m07.182s lap when red flags waved and the session was stopped for 13 minutes.

There was no change at the top before the next red flag stoppage shortly after, which appeared to be caused by David, with Prema’s drivers still yet to even complete an outlap.

After the next restart there was a bit more track activity, and Maloney returned to first place with a 1m31.332s while Goethe went fifth fastest with one of his first flying laps.

Ugochukwu got within 0.282s of Maloney’s pace, and Campos’s Mari Boya went third fastest. Goethe then got within 0.123s of Maloney, but he responded by improving to 1m31.315s.

Voisin and Ugochukwu were less than a tenth of a second slower than Maloney, and Goethe lapped 0.103s off the pace before they all headed back to the pits.

The Prema drivers finally left the pits and began the last hour of the three-hour session by setting their first laps before red flags waved again.

The next stoppage occurred with 25 minutes to go and there was no change to the top five places. It took until the last nine minutes for the widespread focus to switch to setting personal bests, and Goethe went to the top ahead of Prema’s Gabriele Mini, Boya and Fornaroli.

Morning session results