GB3 season review: How Voisin prevailed in three-way title battle

Photos: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Predicted to be one of the closest seasons, GB3 in 2023 proved to be just that with a open title fight that ebbed and flowed all year between Callum Voisin, Alex Dunne and Joseph Loake

It was Rodin Carlin’s Voisin that ultimately sealed the crown in his sophomore campaign, helped by a very consistent season where he accumulated more podiums than anyone else and was in the top six in 14 of the 16 non-reversed-grid races.

Although he only won two races, the 17-year-old still maintained the one-lap pace that had made him stand out in his rookie single-seater assault in 2022. He became the first driver to win GB3’s Jack Cavill Pole Position Cup twice after notching up six poles, twice as many as anybody else managed.

Keen to eradicate the mistakes that he felt came too often last year, Voisin arrived at the Oulton Park opener with a more mature approach, putting all his focus into a title challenge.

He came away from Chesire with two podiums, but felt slightly frustrated about being taken out of the reversed-grid race, and added another podium next time out at Silverstone despite being put in the shade by team-mate John Bennett who won twice on-the-road before post-race penalties came into play.

Following his dominant 2022 British Formula 4 title success, Alex Dunne was slightly inconspicuous at the first two rounds, failing to make the podium and retiring in a collision with Bennett while in contention for victory in race two at Silverstone.

In contrast, fellow British F4 graduate Joseph Loake had a flying start. He won on his debut at Oulton in a JHR Developments one-two, and profited from Bennett’s Silverstone misfortune to inherit two victories, making it three wins from five starts.

“We came off the back of quite a good second half of F4, I only picked up my first pole in single-seaters at the final round last year,” says Loake. “To come straight back and do it again in a completely new car against a lot of people that were [in GB3] last year was quite special.

Loake made a dream start to his GB3 campaign

“It took a while to get confidence in the [F4] car but I knew what I needed to do to be quick. I just managed to switch it on straight away in this car.”

Dunne finally hit form at Spa-Francorchamps, passing Voisin in races one and two to take two wins ahead of his rival. Loake struggled, losing the points lead to Voisin in race two before regaining it by salvaging second in the reversed-grid race.

The close fight continued as the season reached its halfway point at Snetterton. Voisin regained the advantage once more with second in the opener, but a collision with Tymek Kucharczyk while leading race two denied him victory again. With a mistake also costing Loake, a consistent weekend helped Dunne become the third different leader of the standings.

The championship run-in began with a second visit to Silverstone, where the main contenders all struggled – of those only Voisin took a podium finish – and race three was abandoned due to monsoon conditions.

There was extreme weather of a different kind next time out at Brands Hatch, with baking hot conditions providing its own challenges. Loake enjoyed an important return to form, winning from pole ahead of Voisin in race one. The pair lined up on the front row again in the sequel, but this time it was Voisin who made good use of pole to fend off his rival on lap one before finally taking his first win of 2023.

“It was important to do that because not winning in a long time, just for myself was good to get a win under my belt,” says Voisin. “We made some changes to the car, we worked really hard over the summer break and we came back full guns blazing. I made some steps forward in my driving as well and my technique.”

Dunne failed to convert some promising testing pace into a strong qualifying, and a collision with Matthew Rees as he tried to make up ground in race one brought a second retirement of the season for the Irishman.

Dunne was untouchable at Zandvoort

Trailing Voisin by 42 points, Dunne needed a flawless weekend on GB3’s first ever visit to Zandvoort. And that’s exactly what he delivered, producing the most dominant display of the season with two crushing victories. Voisin kept the points lead by finishing seventh and sixth in those two races after an incident in qualifying left him starting down the order, but both Loake and Dunne were now within four points of him.

“After Brands I kind of had the mindset of playing catch-up, so to execute pole position and two race wins was good,” said Dunne of his double triumph. “I needed to raise my game a bit, we were missing a little bit at some points of the year. We hit the ground running and the pace was really strong.”

Starting ahead of his main rivals in the reversed-grid race, Voisin made the best use of just six corners of green-flag racing to gain 10 places to fifth, extending his lead over Loake to 13 points, with Dunne four points further behind.

“We made the best out of a bad situation,” Voisin reflects on his damage-limiting performance in the Netherlands. “We made up positions when we had to, and that’s all you can really ask for when you have a situation like that. It was probably the messiest qualifying I’ve had in a long time. We made good moves and climbed up the order in every race. To only concede one point over the weekend was a miracle.”

All of the three main title contenders knew they could snatch the crown with a strong performance at the Donington Park decider. And it was Voisin that delivered when it mattered, taking two poles in qualifying then converting the first of those into his second victory of the season to put himself within touching distance of the title.

He again led in race two, but a small mistake in greasy conditions gave Dunne the opportunity to pounce and grab the lead. By going on to seal his fifth win, Dunne ensured the title battle went down to the wire. It was now a two-horse race, as a pair of difficult contests ended Loake’s hopes.

Voisin produced his best form at the Donington decider

“I was never expecting to be in the top three in the championship this year so I feel I can be quite proud of what I have done,” says Loake. “I wanted to win it, it would have been a dream to do that, but I would have taken it with both hands [at the start of the year] to come away with third.”

Voisin, however, did what he needed to do in the deciding reversed-grid bout. Starting from 22nd and needing to finish 12th to guarantee himself the title, the Anglo-Swiss quickly gained those 10 places and then maintained station until the chequered flag was waved under safety car conditions.

“Really difficult to put into words,” Voisin reflects on his title success. “It’s been a long old year. We’ve made the most of it. Every time we bagged the points, we did the most we could and we’ve been rewarded with that. We got better towards the end of the season and it was brilliant to finish on a high.

“The main focus compared to last year was just staying consistent. The highs were really high last year but then the lows were way too low. And that was the main focus, minimising the lows, and I think we’ve done that relatively well.”

There was little time to celebrate immediately afterwards, with Voisin heading straight to Imola for an FIA Formula 3 test the following day, and he will get another testing opportunity in the series as a prize for winning the GB3 crown.

“It was relatively short notice,” he reveals of his F3 opportunity. “I was thrown in at the deep end but it went really well. We showed what we could do and it was a great learning experience. The power-to-weight ratio, how it feels over one lap is very similar to the GB3 car, it’s just extracting the most out of the tyre and knowing when to extract it because the balance changes throughout the lap because of how soft the tyre is.”

“It’s going to be a long winter trying to find the budget to do [F3] but winning this has done a tremendous amount of good.”

Cresswell beat Rees and Kucharczyk to claim his maiden win

Championship runner-up Dunne is also aiming to race in F3 next year, having impressed on his debut at last month’s Macau Grand Prix by finishing second in the qualification race before crashing out of the main race.

Loake’s impressive year ended on a high by winning the prestigious Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award, earning £200,000 and a Formula 1 test as part of his prize.

“My original plan was to do two years in GB3, but now I’ve done so well this year I need to look at other options and see where else I can go,” he said of his plans for 2024.

If it wasn’t for a disastrous round one, McKenzy Cresswell would have likely been a strong title contender as well. A switch to Elite Motorsport brought improved confidence for his second year in GB3, but he was hampered at Oulton by a pre-event testing crash and a broken anti-roll bar in qualifying, and more bad luck in all three races left him at the foot of the standings.

Podiums followed at the next two rounds and, after a brief FIA F3 Championship cameo during GB3’s summer break, Cresswell scored a maiden win and five other podiums from seven races, outscoring everyone else during that period to keep his remote title hopes alive until the final round.

Rees was another sophomore driver expecting to mount a title challenge. He also remained within mathematical contention until Donington, but it proved to be largely a season of missed opportunities. Despite being one of the most consistent qualifiers, Rees only won once, with mistakes and incidents blighting his campaign.

James Hedley only secured his place on the grid for a second term on the eve of the season, and he took an emotional maiden win during a very wet race two at Oulton, which helped him raise further budget to remain with Arden VRD for the other seven rounds. He took another win and a further podium at Snetterton, but wasn’t able to reproduce that form elsewhere. After a largely solid campaign, he is aiming to continue in single-seaters in Europe next year.

Hedley holding off Rees for Snetterton win

His team-mate Noah Ping also won at Snetterton, while Hillspeed’s Daniel Mavlyutov was the driver to beat in the reversed-grid races, winning four out of the seven that took place – with Oliver Stewart, Ping and Gerrard Xie claiming the other three.

Kucharczyk was unsure if he would be racing at all in 2023 due to budget issues, but the PK Orlen-backed driver impressed early on for Douglas Motorsport. Some eye-catching pace during round two at Silverstone secured him a double pole, but he was cruelly sent to the back of the grid for all three races after his, and another of Douglas’ cars, were excluded from qualifying for a technical infringement.

The Polish charger lost another potential victory opportunity in his collision with Voisin at Snetterton, but did finish on the podium twice elsewhere before suffering a dip in form during the final three rounds.

Max Esterson was another tipped to fight for the title with Fortec Motorsports but it proved a largely fruitless second year in GB3, with his only podium arriving at the Donington finale. After also competing in two rounds of FIA F3 this year, the American is aiming for a full-time step up to the series in 2024 and recently took part in testing with Jenzer Motorsport.

Grid numbers peaked at a new high of 25 in GB3’s second year using the halo-shod Tatuus MSV-022 chassis, which is set to be replaced with an even faster machine in 2025. With a third overseas round at Hungaroring and the addition of Formula Ford 1600 stalwarts Ammonite Motorsport as a 10th team, the series looks set to grow further in 2024.

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