Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
FIA Formula 3 drivers suffered from excessive tyre wear in today’s sprint race at the Hungaroring, and tyre supplier Pirelli has responded by asking to shorten the feature race.
Series stewards have accepted Pirelli’s recommendation, and the feature race will now match the distance of the sprint race.
Tyre wear was already a worry coming into the weekend, as a new specification of the medium compound tyre was being used competitively for the first time.
“FIA F3 race two at Budapest will consist of a total of 19 laps or 45 minutes plus one (1) lap rather than the originally scheduled 24 laps,” read the statement from F3 announcing the shortening of Sunday’s race.
“The stewards after receiving a report from the official tyre supplier recommending that the FIA F3 race two be limited to no more than 19 laps due to a level of wear experienced during race one. Having considered the matter extensively and after consultation with the race director and technical delegate, decide to modify the length of race two to 19 laps for safety reasons, in accordance with Article 5.3 of the FIA F3 sporting regulations and under the power granted to them under Articles 11.9.3. b) and 11.9.3. o) of the 2023 FIA International Sporting Code.
“The stewards requests the Event promoter to take note of the new number of llaps and to issue a new timetable.”
In the press conference after the sprint race, winner Gabriele Mini spoke about how much tyre-saving was required to get to the finish.
“Managing [tyres was really important] because at the end we were running more or less six, seven seconds or five seconds slower than the beginning. So you can imagine degradation was really high and it was all about just running till the end.”
There are also several penalties that have been handed out for the feature race. Van Amersfoort Racing’s three drivers all get five-place grid drops after the team worked on their tyres at a time when they should have been returned to parc ferme. ART Grand Prix’s Nikola Tsolov has a three-place grid penalty for causing a collision with Pepe Marti in the sprint race.