FIA Formula 3 2024 season preview: A guide to all 30 drivers

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Will it be a returnee or a rookie who becomes FIA F3 champion in 2024? Here’s a guide to the entry list

Prema

Prema took the teams’ title for the fourth time in five years last season, but by a small margin of 19 points. It has not run a champion since 2021, with its drivers missing out by seven and then 45 points the last two years. The Italian outfit really wants to bring home both titles this year.

1. Dino Beganovic Sweden, 20
2023: 6th in FIA F3 Championship, 11th in FRegional Middle East

Beganovic looked competitive as soon as he arrived in F3, making the podium in his second race. While he made the feature race podium three more times, he failed to join his team-mates in winning. Despite eight non-scores, with only two points from the last four races, he was one of six contenders to be championship runner-up in the season finale.

Ending a season badly hasn’t been a trend of Beganovic’s in lower series, so if he is fighting for the title this year then don’t expect him to fold at the final hurdle.

2. Gabriele Mini Italy, 18
2023: 3rd in FIA F3 World Cup, 7th in FIA F3 Championship, 22nd in FRME

Another of the drivers who could have ended up as last year’s runner-up, Mini was the rank outsider and he dropped from third to seventh in the standings with two rounds to go and stayed there.

He was Hitech GP’s sole representative in that six-way fight, and his team-mates’ combined points tally still came 14 short of his own. Mini took two wins and two poles, but only scored in just over half of the races he contested. Now at Prema, a title challenge has to be built on better lows than achieving more highs.

3. Arvid Lindblad Britain, 16
2024: 13th in FRME   2023: Macau F4 race winner, 3rd in Italian F4, 4th in Euro 4, 5th in F4 UAE

Lindblad is another driver who has history with Hitech, and the team is invested in his success. But the Red Bull junior’s jump up from Formula 4 comes with Prema, which ran him in Italian F4, Euro F4 and F4 South East Asia last year and then in Formula Regional Middle East at the start of this one.

Only three drivers did more F4 races than him in 2023, and his tally of 10 wins and 19 podiums made him the fifth most successful driver in the category by each metric. Getting a lot of experience in was key since 2024 is only his second full year in car racing, and getting a win on his second FRegional start has raised expectations for his transition to F3.

Trident

There’s a close rivalry between F3’s two Italian teams, and Trident has been second best to Prema in three of the last four seasons. It took the teams’ title in 2021, and its narrow defeat last year was at least made up for by its driver Gabriel Bortoleto becoming champion by a big margin.

4. Leonardo Fornaroli Italy, 19
2023: 11th in FIA F3 Championship

The continuation of a productive relationship with Trident may make Fornaroli a dark horse this season. His FRegional Europe campaign with the team in 2022 resulted in eighth in the standings, but only four top-five finishes from 20 races, and he came 11th in last year’s FIA F3 Championship by making the podium three times and scoring in 11 out of 18 races. Seven more points would have put him eighth in the standings.

However he was the weakest driver in Trident’s line-up, with fellow rookie Bortoleto romping to the podium after also stepping up from FREC. Fornaroli will assume the team leader role this year as Trident’s only F3 sophomore, but what will he do with it in terms of results?

5. Sami Meguetounif France, 19
2023: 9th in FRegional Europe, 10th in FRME

One win from three years in F4 was followed by one win in two years of racing in FRegional. If Trident continues to be the team to beat like last year, maybe Meguetounif will win as an F3 rookie.

He came fourth in the 2020 French F4 season with seven other podiums to go alongside his sole victory, and his two years with MP Motorsport in FRegional did feature three second places in Europe and a win in the Middle East.

What suggests his move up to F3 could go even better is how productive pre-season testing was. Only Fornaroli set more laps than him, and he completed the joint most laps in a session and went on the joint longest race simulation of 23 laps. Those kinds of preparations are key for a series in which he will face longer races than FRegional but still no pitstops.

6. Santiago Ramos Mexico, 20
2023: 11th in FREC

Ramos never finished higher than fifth in 35 Italian F4 races, and had a points-free rookie FREC season with KIC Motorsport, but with Race Performance Motorsport last year he impressed to take one podium and come 11th in the standings despite missing 15% of the season.

F3 will probably not be where he suddenly starts setting the racing world alight, but 2023 proved that being in the right team environment can lead to strong results. Signing with Trident therefore seems like a very sensible choice for his rookie F3 season, and he was eighth fastest overall in pre-season testing in addition to matching Meguetounif’s lap count and long run stats.

MP Motorsport

The Dutch squad has been becoming more competitive with each year, and 2024 looks to be its best shot so far at either title. Running a line-up consisting entirely of series newcomers is a risk, but Trident showed in 2023 that it can be well rewarded.

7. Tim Tramnitz Germany, 19
2023: 12th in Euroformula, 3rd in FREC, 20th in FRME

Tramnitz was fighting for the FREC title when Red Bull signed him to its junior team last October, and at that point it already looked like he would be moving up to F3 with MP.

The 2021 ADAC and Italian F4 runner-up came 15th in the standings in his rookie FREC season, and scored seven times as many points in his sophomore campaign. A Euroformula cameo last year also resulted in three podiums from three races.

Tramnitz is in a comfortable place in his career, and the Red Bull backing does add pressure but also instills confidence. In pre-season testing he was fifth fastest over one lap, fourth fastest on long-run pace, and only the Trident drivers spent more time on track than him. Although he has third-tier single-seater experience from that Euroformula cameo, Tramnitz was effectively the top rookie in Bahrain earlier this month.

8. Kacper Sztuka Poland, 18
2023: Italian F4 champion, FWinter Series champion, 8th in Euro 4

Sztuka was also rewarded with Red Bull Junior Team membership late last year after he won the Formula Winter Series and Italian F4 titles. He also raced, and won, in Euro 4 and his 16 victories and 16 poles were the most by anyone in the category in 2023.

However it took until his third year in F4 for Sztuka to even become a regular victory contender, so skipping FRegional to do lots of learning in F3 means results will probably not come at first. He was outside of the top 20 on pace in pre-season testing as well while his team-mates were towards the top.

9. Alex Dunne Ireland, 18
2023: 2nd in GB3

In 2022, Dunne dominated the British F4 championship. But more importantly he gained European circuit experience in Italian F4, and looked just as impressive as he came second to generational talent Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the title fight.

He stayed in Britain for 2023, winning five races in GB3 and fighting Callum Voisin for the title all the way to the last race.

His Hitech team rewarded him with an F3 seat for the world cup-awarding Macau Grand Prix, and Dunne was sixth in qualifying, second in the qualification race then crashed out of the main race while fighting for the win. The full-time move to F3 comes with MP, and he’s another being labelled as a dark horse.

Campos Racing

Campos scored 179 points, won three races and took six podiums last year, more than it managed from 2019 to 2022 combined. But can it do even better? It got the least running done in pre-season testing, so may start on the back foot.

10. Oliver Goethe Denmark, 19
2023: 8th in FIA F3 Championship, 9th in FIA F3 World Cup

Goethe was anonymous in Spanish F4 and then in two FRegional championships with MP, but after joining Euroformula with the series’ dominant team Motopark he turned into a winning force with 11 victories and seven poles as he became champion in his rookie campaign in third-tier single-seaters.

But could he replicate that in the more competitive FIA F3 Championship? He scored enough points from the two rounds he contested with Campos in 2022 to come 19th in the standings, then he started last year with a sixth place and a podium. Nine points-free races followed for the Trident driver, then he won the Silverstone feature race and scored in both Hungaroring races.

Even more points at Monza meant he finished eighth in the standings, but there’s still a lot of unanswered questions given how his team-mates scored strongly when he struggled. Returning to Campos won’t turn him into a title contender, but might reflect better on him come season-end.

11. Sebastian Montoya Colombia, 18
2023: 16th in FIA F3 Championship, 21st in FRME, 7th in European Le Mans Series – LMP2 Pro/Am class

Just like Goethe, Montoya made his F3 debut in a mid-season outing with Campos in 2022 and now returns to the team after joining a rival for his first full campaign.

He raced for Hitech in 2023, and three races in was eighth in the standings after taking a second place and two other points finishes. But he had to wait 13 races to finish in the top six again, and fell to 16th in the points table.

Montoya’s return to Campos has been tricky so far, with a complicated Macau GP weekend and then limited running in pre-season testing. He was slowest of all and did 86 laps, less than half of what Fornaroli managed.

12. Mari Boya Spain, 19
2024: 5th in FRME   2023: 4th in FIA F3 World Cup, 17th in FIA F3 Championship, 2nd in Eurocup-3, 5th in FRME

Boya knows where he needs to improve on his rookie F3 campaign, and it ended on a high with his two best results at Monza. That was followed up with sixth and fourth in the two Macau races.

Last year he had to get used to switching between cars, as he raced in the FRegional-base Eurocup-3 series as well as F3. He was championship runner-up in the former, winning five races, and having winning momentum there may have actually hurt his F3 season as he only scored in five races.

He’s committed to only one series going forward, having raced in FRME at the start of this year, and that should lead to stronger results if Campos is competitive.

Hitech GP

Hitech was the pace-setting team in the Bahrain pre-season test, but the times suggested it could again be heavily dependent on one driver this year.

14. Luke Browning Britain, 22
2023: FIA F3 World Cup winner, 15th in FIA F3 Championship, 26th in FRME

The 2020 British F4 and 2022 GB3 champion arrived in F3 last year, after seven years racing cars, with the Red Bull Ring, Silverstone, Spa-Francorchamps as the only circuits he knew on the calendar.

Despite that disadvantage, Browning scored in five of the first seven races – all on unknown tracks – and finished second at Barcelona. But in the remaining 11 races in Europe he only scored once and dropped from seventh to 15th in the standings.

“Luke, he had last year I’d say an interesting season where he showed a lot of promise in F3. Probably didn’t quite put it together when it mattered, he wouldn’t mind me staying…,” Hitech team principal Oliver Oakes recently told media.

“And then he almost made up for that in a good way in Macau. So he’s sort of now got to do it this year consistently, weekend after weekend.”

Oakes was referring to Browning qualifying on pole and then taking victory and fastest lap in both races at the FIA F3 World Cup. Was it a one-off? Well, Browning topped the times in pre-season testing and was third fastest on long-run pace. He is potentially the strongest all-round package going into round one.

15. Martinius Stenshorne Norway, 18
2024: 8th in FRME   2023: 2nd in FREC, 18th in FRME

There were high expectations for Stenshorne when he graduated from karting in 2022, and he performed strongly to come seventh in Italian F4 and 10th in F4 United Arab Emirates. But only three podiums across four series made some wonder if he really was an Antonelli-esque talent.

Then he stepped up to FRegional last year he finished no higher than sixth in his thee rounds in the Middle East championship. But he answered his doubters on the return to Europe, winning from pole on his FREC debut and taking another pole and two wins in round three.

A fourth victory and three third places meant he led the points after 11 races, with nine to go. But Antonelli then came to the fore, and took the title with a round to spare. Somehow Stenshorne ending the season as runner-up, and with a fifth win and a second place in the final round, felt disappointing after his explosive start to the campaign.

Testing was inconclusive on how competitive Stenshorne will be in F3, but he should benefit a lot from being able to learn from Browning.

16. Cian Shields Britain, 18
2023: 2nd in Euroformula

Shields is in his third year racing cars, and his second in third-tier single-seaters. He took one win and two second places to come 13th in the GB3 standings in 2022 when he stepped up from karting, and last year he made the most of being with the dominant Motopark to be Euroformula championship runner-up with four wins.

He trailed his team-mates by some margin in pre-season testing, but if he learns quickly then Shields could spring a surprise.

Jenzer Motorsport

A winless streak of 1421 days in the series was ended at Spa last summer, and for the first time ever Jenzer got all three of its cars into the points in that race. The team visited the podium four times in the last six races, and looks to have a much needed more evenly matched line-up for 2024.

17. Charlie Wurz Austria, 18
2023-24: Currently 15th in Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East   2023: 6th in Euroformula, FRegional Oceania champion, 26th in FREC

The son of former Formula 1 driver Alexander Wurz was an F4 champion in 2022 and a FRegional champion in 2023, but carrying out F3 heroics with Jenzer would be a huge ask.

After taking the FRegional Oceania title, Wurz struggled to challenge for points in FREC and made a mid-season step up to Euroformula. As is the case for many, driving a Motopark-run car meant success was guaranteed and he took a win, two seconds and two thirds to come sixth in the standings.

He moved across to F3 afterwards for the Macau GP, and finished 11th in the qualification race but retired from the main race with a damaged car. Wurz can be encouraged by Jenzer’s strong single-lap pace in pre-season testing.

18. Max Esterson USA, 21
2023: 20th in FIA F3 World Cup, 35th in FIA F3 Championship, 11th in GB3

Esterson has made a success of the switch from virtual to real-world racing, winning the 2021 Walter Hayes Trophy, the 2022 Formula Ford Festival and winning a race in GB3.

However his second GB3 campaign was weaker in results than his first, coming 11th last year after finishing seventh in the standings in 2022.

He spent three weekends racing in F3, with 16th place being his best result. In 2024 pre-season testing he was more competitive, going sixth fastest.

19. Matias Zagazeta Peru, 20
2023: 17th in FIA F3 World Cup, 17th in FRME, 22nd in FREC

Zagazeta was British F4 runner-up in 2021 and has only shown glimpses of frontrunning form since.

He failed to score as a FREC rookie with G4 Racing, then switching to the crack R-ace GP team for 2023 resulted in second place on his FRME debut and a fifth place on his second FREC start of the year but only 17th and 22nd in the standings of the two series.

His F3 debut came with Jenzer in the Macau GP and he finished 17th from 24th on the grid.

Van Amersfoort Racing

A driver from the Americas has carried the team in each of the last two seasons, and Noel Leon looks to continue that trend into 2024 given the pace he showed in testing.

20. Noel Leon Mexico, 19
2023: Euroformula champion, 19th in FIA F3 World Cup

Leon conquered F4 in North America, winning Mexico and the USA’s national championships, but relocating his career to Europe initially seemed to be a misstep as he struggled to 23rd in the FREC standings in 2022 with Arden.

Having scored just three points that year, he went on to score 394 the year after as he romped to the Euroformula title with seven wins and five poles.

He ended the year in Macau with VAR, and finished an anonymous 19th in the grand prix. While he was second fastest in testing at Bahrain, his long-run pace was only 16th best.

21. Sophia Floersch Germany, 23
2023: 11th in FIA F3 World Cup, 23rd in FIA F3 Championship

Floersch is embarking on her fourth year in F3, with a seventh place at Spa last season one of only two points finishes in that time. In that same period she has had more success in sportscars, making the podium in the European Le Mans Series and scoring in the DTM and World Endurance Championship.

Ending 2023 by coming 11th in the Macau GP on her return to VAR suggested things could be on the up, but if single-seaters is where she sees the future of her career she needs to raise her game in 2024.

22. Tommy Smith Australia, 21
2024: 8th in FRegional Oceania   2023: 14th in FIA F3 World Cup, 28th in FIA F3 Championship

The best result of Smith’s rookie F3 season was a 12th place on home soil in Melbourne, and 14th in the Macau GP was his next-best race finish. There’s not much reason to expect more from him in 2024, except he’s actually had a quietly impressive start to the year.

A win and a second place in two reversed-grid GB3 races in 2022 marked the only podiums of Smith’s six years in winged single-seaters prior to last month when he joined FRegional Oceania for three rounds and in addition to a third place finish scored enough points to come eighth in the standings despite missing 40% of the season.

ART Grand Prix

ART GP really struggled for pace last year, even though its drivers reported that the car handled well and felt fast on track. If the team hasn’t got to the bottom of the mismatch, it will be mired in the midfield again.

23. Christian Mansell Australia, 19
2024: 9th in FRegional Oceania   2023: 12th in FIA F3 Championship, 16th in FIA F3 World Cup

Mansell has taken wins in F4, GB3, FRegional and Euroformula, and so far has two podiums from his first 24 races in F3. He’s still only 19, and a solid talent, but Mansell will need ART GP to return to its title-fighting form after a lacklustre 2023 if he is to taste victory this year.

Since pre-season testing created more questions than answers for the team, and those observing it, it’s hard to predict not only how Mansell and ART GP will fare at Bahrain but over the course of the season.

24. Laurens van Hoepen Netherlands, 18
2023: 10th in FIA F3 World Cup, 10th in FREC, 11th in FRegional Oceania

In Van Hoepen’s first two years with ART GP, he averaged 2.15 points per race in FREC and with two podiums on home soil at Zandvoort being the highlights for the protege of Nyck de Vries.

Most of his success has come in his brief time with other teams, starting with Graff Racing in the FRegional-spec Ultimate Cup Series Single-Seater Challenge in 2021.

He only contested the second half of the season, after turning 16, and took pole on his debut. From nine race he claimed six wins, going unbeaten in qualifying against Formula E race-winner Nico Prost and taking third in the standings.

Then at the start of last year he joined M2 Competition for two FRegional Oceania rounds and made the podium in five out of six races. On his debut weekend he took two poles and won the New Zealand Grand Prix.

Van Hoepen made his F3 debut in November’s world cup and qualified 22nd. He rose up the order in the races and finished 10th in the Macau GP itself.

25. Nikola Tsolov Bulgaria, 17
2023: 22nd in FIA F3 Championship, 10th in Eurocup-3, 23rd in FRME

Several Bulgarians have made it up to single-seaters’ second tier, and Tsolov is on course to join them with the backing of the Alpine F1 team.

He trampled the opposition as a car racing rookie in Spanish F4 two years ago, winning 13 races and becoming champion by 113 points, then last year a double podium from one of his two Eurocup-3 outings was enough to put him 10th in the standings there.

But FIA F3 was his true focus, and that was not a good campaign. ART GP’s lack of pace, even with a well balanced car, left Tsolov usually chasing 11th place finishes rather than points and it took until the penultimate round for him to score. His tally of six points left him 22nd in the standings.

Staying with the team for 2024 could be a risk, but he was fourth fastest in pre-season testing (and second on theoretical best laptimes) and ART GP’s quickest driver on long runs.

PHM Racing

The German outfit now runs the cars previously owned by Charouz Racing System, after a transitionary year in which the team scored points in only one race. The only way must be up.

26. Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak Thailand, 18
2024: 9th in FRME   2023: 6th in Eurocup-3, 19th in FRME

Inthraphuvasak steps up to F3 after an up-and-down time in FRegional-based series.

He had a six-race spell in USC SSC with a return of five wins, three poles and six fastest laps in 2022, then started the next year in FRME where he took one podium en route to 19th in the standings.

A Eurocup-3 campaign followed, and he came sixth with four podiums and two poles. He recently returned to FRME, and this time was ninth in the points table with three second place finishes.

27. Nikita Bedrin Russia, 18
2024: 5th in F4 UAE   2023: 18th in FIA F3 Championship, 8th in FRME

The Russian-born racer is set to race under an Italian license again, and needs to find consistency in his second F3 season. Last year he only scored three times, but finished third in the Hungaroring sprint race and Spa feature race late in the campaign.

He seemed to repeatedly come on strong at the end of seasons last year, as he went from being a midfielder in FRME to winning two of the last four races and when he turned up to the last two FREC rounds he took a fifth place and then a third.

The inconsistency and late surges are unsurprising considering Bedrin stepped up from F4, a category he stepped back down to last month in F4 UAE. He won three of his nine races there, with a better scoring rate than anyone else.

28. Joshua Dufek Switzerland, 19
2023: 7th in Euroformula, 29th in FIA F3 Championship, 6th in FRME, 13th in FREC

Dufek failed to win in his two years in FRegional, and only took one victory in his two years in F4 before that, but he’s already shown stronger form at the F3 level as he took a win and six other podiums from his three Euroformula outings in 2023. He also made an FIA F3 Championship appearance at Monza, finishing 14th in both races.

He already knows PHM after racing for it in FRME last year, and the aim will be to score points now he reunites with the team in F3.

Rodin Motorsport

It is not quite clear how much has changed internally since Rodin Cars’ buyout of Carlin, a team that had two second places as its best results from five years in the FIA F3 Championship. Testing suggests another year of fighting in the midfield lies ahead.

29. Callum Voisin Britain/Switzerland, 17
2023: GB3 champion

Voisin has taken a slightly unconventional path to F3. He spent one year in the entry level sportscar series Ginetta Junior and took seven wins, but only came sixth in the points. Next up was GB3 with Rodin Carlin, and he came just shy of being in the top three in the championship as a single-seater rookie after winning three races and finishing second in three others.

In his sophomore GB3 campaign with the team he took one less win, but he increased his podium tally to 11 and became champion.

If Voisin wanted the continuity of staying with Rodin Motorsport (as the automotive brand bought out Carlin during the off-season), then F3 was the only option since the team does not compete in FRegional. But Voisin was slowest by some margin on long-run pace in pre-season testing and he only knows two circuits on the F3 calendar. He has lots to learn.

31. Piotr Wisnicki Poland, 20
2023: 34th in FIA F3 Championship

The hunt for a first top-five finish in racing cars continues for Wisnicki. A sixth place was his best result from two years in Italian F4, he got a 21st place on his second start in FREC then never did any better, then in four FIA F3 Championship rounds with PHM Racing by Charouz last year he could point to an 18th place in Monaco as his best result.

After such a curtailed campaign, he will still be learning at this level, just like his more decorated rookie team-mates.

32. Joseph Loake Britain, 18
2023: 3rd in GB3

Loake faces the same challenges as Voisin by graduating from GB3, where he won four races last year. Three of those came in the first five races, but he was still able to maintain his title challenge until the penultimate race of the season. He capped off 2023 by earning a prize F1 test after winning the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award.

Before GB3, Loake took the title in the entry-level touring car series BRSCC Fiesta Junior in 2020 and won seven races across two seasons in British F4.