Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Rodin Motorsport’s Callum Voisin had a breakthrough weekend in Formula 3 at Silverstone, quaifying in the top 10 for the first time then taking his first points and podium.
He was ninth fastest in qualifying, started and finished fourth in the reversed-grid sprint race then would have won the wet-dry feature race were it not for a 10-second penalty. Such was his gap to the rest of the field he still made the podium in third.
Voisin chose slick tyres from the off, “definitely a gamble”, while Prema’s race winner Arvid Lindblad had gone for wets before switching at the end of the formation lap. That gave Voisin a track position advantage, and he took three laps to get into the lead. However, the wet runners had the pace advantage when the rain fell again on lap seven, and he dropped to 21st. Then after a safety car period took four laps to return to the lead.
“I think if there were more slick runners then it would have been much more difficult. I am still happy with the pace, I managed to fend off two Prema cars who are fighting for the championship so not too bad of a day in the office,” said Voisin.
“Thankfully for us the safety car was quite long. I think that actually kind of helped us because at the start we can’t get any temperature in because it was so slippery everywhere. Then it started to dry up, especially off-line, towards the end of the safety car you could get a little bit more temperature in.”
As for the penalty he received for passing Jenzer Motorsport’s Max Esterson off-track, Voisin added: “I went down running around the outside at turn three and I mean I was ahead of the apex when he pushed me off wide into the exit of the kerb.
“To me there was nothing really. I didn’t even know what the team were on about when they said I got a 10s penalty. It’s very disappointing for sure because I think that’s just racing and I would have overtaken him at that corner whatever happened considering I was on the slicks compared to the wets he had.”
Voisin thinks Rodin “definitely have got the confidence” going forward after claiming its first podium since 2022.
“I thought it was going to be tricky [to hold off Lindblad and his Prema team-mate Gabriele Mini] but we held on just fine. It’s not going to be easy but I think we’ve got a good shot at staying in the top 10 week-in, week-out now so a nice haul of points for the team.”
Prior to Silverstone, Voisin reckoned qualifying was his main weakness: “Maximising the first lap on these tyres, because that’s all you really get, is the main thing for us, I think. As the race pace overall has been pretty decent.”