Mini’s F3 points lead grows as title rivals handed track limits penalties

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

FIA Formula 3 stewards issued over two minutes worth of time penalties related to track violations committed in Saturday’s sprint race at Spa-Francorchamps.

Once a driver is found to have exceeded track limits four times in a race, they are penalised five seconds. Each further violation leads to another five-second penalty.

Stewards had already penalised Trident’s Sami Meguetounif 30 seconds, AIX Racing’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak 10s and Prema’s Arvid Lindblad five seconds before the end of the sprint race for repeated abuse of track limits, with Lindblad having another five seconds added to his race time shortly after the finish.

A few hours later several more track limits penalties came in, with Campos Racing’s Mari Boya penalised 25s for exceeding track limits eight times, MP Motorsport’s Alex Dunne, Hitech GP’s Luke Browning and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Tommy Smith penalised 10s, Inthraphuvasak getting two more five-second penalties to add to the two he already had, and Hitech’s Martinius Stenshorne, Jenzer Motorsport’s Charlie Wurz and the Trident trio of Leonardo Fornaroli, Meguetounif and Santiago Ramos being penalised five seconds each (meaning Meguetounif racked up 35s of penalties in total).

The penalties bring Campos’s Sebastian Montoya and Oliver Goethe up to fifth and sixth in the race race results, with Rodin Motorsport’s Callum Voisin gaining three spots to be classified seventh while Ramos, Fornaroli and Browning all lose points by dropping from fifth, eighth and sixth to eighth, ninth and 12th respectively.

Gabriele Mini’s championship lead now grows from eight to 13 points over Browning, with Fornaroli a further point behind and Lindblad 15 points off the top.

“It was almost impossible to stay on track. And I think we were all out everywhere,” Lindblad told Formula Scout.

“It was a bit annoying because with five, six laps to go my engineer told me I had two track limits. I didn’t do any for the rest of the race, but they still came through because they were going through the previous laps’ ones.”

Lindblad, who would have finished outside of the points anyway had he been penalty-free, added: “I think the race was pretty good. And there was not that much I’d do different if I do it all over again.”

In total, 101 laptimes by 28 drivers were deleted due to track limits abuse. The only non-offenders were Jenzer’s Max Esterson and Rodin’s Piotr Wisnicki. Esterson had no violations since he crashed out on lap one.

Eau Rouge was where track limits was exceeded 52 times, and there were 46 violations at Pouhon, two at Les Combes and one at Speaker’s Corner.

Browning avoided a penalty for allegedly forcing off Meguetounif at turn five, and MP’s Tim Tramnitz also went unpunished after a potential unsafe release in the pitlane was investigated.

Lindblad interview by Roger Gascoigne

Race results (12 laps)