Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Oliver Goethe was delighted to get two FIA Formula 3 Championship podiums at Imola.
After a disappointing qualifying he won the sprint race and was feature race runner-up, as he finally turned consistency into competitivity.
He was one of three drivers to have scored in every race before Imola, but only once finishing higher than ninth, and is now one of only two to score in all races this season.
“It was an amazing [feature] race,” Goethe told Formula Scout. “The pace at the start was really, really strong. Then I struggled a bit more at the end with the tyres. But I’m really happy with how this weekend went overall.”
Goethe started seventh but led 12 laps, and with five laps remaining yielded to Trident’s Sami Meguetounif, whose tyres were in better shape. He had pushed hard early on to gain places, but reckoned that being smoother in his progression might have not changed a result which still brought “a lot of confidence”.
“Possibly I could have managed the tyres slightly better, but then I wouldn’t have had as much gap. And Sami was really strong at one point of the race. So it’s hard to tell. But I had to push a lot more initially to gain the positions and I think I did the race well.”
Goethe was also happy not to “crack under pressure” in a “pretty stressful” battle after being passed, having “to do perfect laps to stay in front of Leo [Fornaroli]” for second place.
“The first couple of rounds were not bad, but on the lower end of the top 10 and now I was on the right end of the top 10.”
The consistency contrasts with Goethe’s 2023 season, when he took a win, a second and a pole but failed to score in 12 races. This was despite already having 30 races of F3-level experience, having taken the 2022 Euroformula title with 11 victories.
His Campos Racing team-mates Mari Boya and Sebastian Montoya also had flawless Sundays at Imola, rising from 27th and 23rd on the grid to ninth and 10th place respectively.
Strong race pace was “nothing new” for Boya, who believed he could have finished higher had his sprint race not ended after five corners: “It was even harder for me to know the tricks that make the difference. So already when the tyre was a bit destroyed, it was a bit too late to learn from this.”
He reckons “a clean weekend” is all that is needed for him to become a winner.
Montoya told his engineer “it was one of those difficult races because I had to work for every position”.
“When you’re starting at the back, every time that happens, you start to lose a bit more time. So then you have to connect to the guys in front again. But for me, it was really fun,” he said.
Team principal Adrian Campos Jr called his drivers “outstanding compared to everyone else”.