FIA F3 teams learn limits of new car on first morning of pre-season test

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

FIA Formula 3 Championship teams got to put the new Dallara F3 2025 through its paces on the first morning of pre-season testing at Barcelona.

Roman Bilinski led the way 40 minutes into the three-hour session, a 1m29.577s putting him just 0.015 seconds up on Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov and a second ahead of Rodin Motorsport team-mate Callum Voisin. At that point six drivers had set representative laptimes, and 12 others had lapped at a shakedown pace.

ART Grand Prix’s Tuukka Taponen went 0.593s faster than Bilinki just before the 45-minute mark, and team-mate Laurens van Hoepen hopped up to seventh place.

James Wharton made it an ART GP one-two a few minutes later, setting a 1m29.483s, then van Hoepen improved to 1m29.654s so the top five was covered by a second.

Rodin’s drivers headed back out, and Louis Sharp set a 1m30.987s to sit eighth. After 50 minutes, only a third of the field had completed representative running.

Two-and-a-half minutes later, Van Hoepen moved to the top with a 1m28.568s and Sharp improved to sixth.

The track soon becamer quiet, with most drivers in the pits. After 70 minutes, there were still seven of the 30 drivers who had not recorded any laptimes. These were DAMS’ line-up of Christian Ho, Niko Lacorte and Matias Zagazeta, MP Motorsport’s Bruno del Pino and Campos’s Mari Boya and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak. They did spend time on track, but by session-end still had no numbers next to their names.

It was not until approaching the session’s halfway mark that there was another improvement, coming from Prema’s Noel Leon who posted a 1m29.720s to sit seventh.

There was more track action, but still scant improvements, during the final hour and with 55 minutes to go Van Amersfoort Racing’s Theophile Nael set a 1m29.954s in eighth. At this point the top 14 were covered by 5.77s on pace.

Later his team-mate Ivan Domingues broke into the top five with a 1m29.354s, then returned to the pits where the rest of the top 10 also were.

Santiago Ramos completed a trio of VAR drivers setting personal bests with 26 minutes to go, improving twice on his run but remaining in 13th after recording a 1m31.299s.

The top two headed back out with 20 minutes remaining but did not improve, then ART GP’s stronghold on the top three was broken with 13-and-a-half minutes to go as Bilinski returned to the top with a 1m28.150s. Sharp got within 0.31s of him 20s later to get into second, then Voisin lowered the pace by 0.191s a minute after that.

Ramos improved again down in 13th, and with seven minutes to go Bilinski went fastest in the first two sectors but then pitted and the top 10 was set. AIX Racing’s Javier Sagrera hopped up to 11th, 1.9s off the pace, late on and only half the field set representative laptimes.

When the chequered flag waved, Martinius Stenshorne and Gerrard Xie (both Hitech GP) and Noah Stromsted (Trident) were on track.

Morning session results