Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
While Gabriel Bortoleto charged from 22nd on the grid to win the Formula 2 feature race at Monza, Laurens Van Hoepen matched that progress in Formula 3.
The ART Grand Prix climbed from 29th on the grid on Sunday morning to eighth at the finish – without the benefit of a pit-stop. After the race, he told Formula Scout about his “amazing race”.
“It was very fun. Of course, you don’t want to start so far back but seeing the circumstances, I still had a lot of fun and overtaking almost every lap just was really exciting,” he said, still smiling broadly from his afternoon’s work.
Making up 21 places in 22 laps, of which three were run behind the safety car, required some aggressive moves at different corners around the track.
“I would say the first chicane was nice, but I also did some moves into Ascari. I had a move into Parabolica. The second chicane was working well and I think I did a move around the outside in Lesmo 1. So, I had some fun all around the track.”
When the safety car made its first appearance on lap 6, he had already gained 10 positions, but then a storming restart took him past four more cars on the first racing lap.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, as he had to pass and repass both Max Esterson and Joshua Dufek.
In the cut and thrust of an F3 midfield, it is easy to lose a wing or make a mistake, so how did he manage to stay out of trouble?
“It’s so tricky. You have to be so aware of everything around you and you have to really find your way through and just be at the right place at the right time. You can be very unlucky, but luckily we didn’t have any issues.”
He crossed the line in 10th, but penalties for Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Gabriele Mini moved him up to eighth in the final classification to give him four points and 13th in the final standings.
Van Hoepen was one of the surprise performers of the 2024 F3 season, taking three sprint race podiums in the first four rounds and even an outright pole position at the Hungaroring, but feels that with better luck “we could have easily been inside the top eight in the championship.
“I think it was a good season [but] it’s just a shame that you can’t really see how fast we were when you look at the [points] because we were super quick all season long. [We were] unlucky in Budapest, unlucky in Barcelona [and] Silverstone didn’t really go our way and we lost a lot of points because of that.
“At least the pace was there. The luck will come eventually, but if you’re not fast, you’re not going to achieve much anyway. So at least we’re fast and then we can build on that.”
And his post-season plans? “Some golf, some tennis, lots of sports, but also hopefully a lot of driving as well.”