Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited
A delighted Leonardo Fornaroli made his way back to the congratulations of all in the FIA Formula 3 paddock after he was crowned the 2024 champion in a thrilling climax to the title decider at Monza.
The Trident driver was fourth going into the final lap, with his Prema rival Gabriele Mini two places ahead and heading for the championship title. While Mini was subsequently disqualified giving Fornaroli a comfortable margin in the final standings, at the time he needed to pass ART Grand Prix’s Christian Mansell.
“I am super happy to finally take this title,” a beaming Fornaroli told Formula Scout. “It was a hard race. I started well and then I decided to let Alex [Dunne] by to stay in his DRS without doing any crazy moves.
“After the safety car restart, I did a mistake in Ascari. It was full of dust, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so slippery, so I completely lost the rear and lost three positions.”
However, he quickly recomposed: “I completely changed my mindset to try to recover as much as possible, and with that I destroyed a bit my tyres.”
“At the end [Mini] and Mansell were quicker than me. With two laps to go, I asked my engineer, ‘Am I still champion if I am P4 and he is P2?’ and he said ‘No, you have to overtake Mansell in front of you.’ Luckily they started to fight a bit because they had better tyres than me.
“I tried the move in the second chicane but it wasn’t enough and I locked up because I had no front anymore. I knew Ascari was basically the last chance, but [Mansell] defended very well. Then going into the last corner [Parabolica] I said ‘OK, this is all in.’”
The Italian went for the small gap he spotted on the inside and paid tribute afterwards to the “very correct” Mansell. “He was fair to leave the right gap between me and him.”
He believed that “compared to last year with Trident we made a huge step forward in the races.”
Consistency “has been [our] strong point,” he affirmed. “Right after Silverstone I was 26 points behind the leader, so I knew I had to be consistently in the top five and to stay in front of them in the last three weekends and we managed to do it.”
“I am extremely proud of what Leo Fornaroli achieved this weekend,” a smiling Trident team manager Giacomo Ricci told Formula Scout. “The way how we won this one I cannot believe still; to win on the last lap of the race in the last corner.”
Except for the Red Bull Ring where Fornaroli lost his laptime for track limits, he has “always been in front” in qualifying and Ricci remarked that “he has always been extremely quick through the whole season.”
An impressed Ricci believes Fornaroli “is extremely fast, naturally talented, very consistent with the races, good [in] overtaking. He is quite complete, I would say.”