Four rounds to go with all to play for! Silverstone round preview

Formula 3 cars racing around Silverstone. Credit: Dan Mullan via Getty Images

Formula 3 returns this weekend with four rounds remaining of the 2024 campaign as the series heads to Silverstone for round eight.

It has been a season so far where the championship has been tightly fought all the way through and will be seemingly closely fought all the way to the last round in Monza, Italy in September.

British Williams Academy driver Luke Browning took the feature race win last time out in Austria.

Browning will come into his home round at Silverstone with the championship lead over the challenging pack.

A look at the track - Silverstone, Great Britain

Racing action returns for the third leg of the triple header in Formula 3, as the series prepares for round seven of 10 in the 2024 series. Formula 3 will race this coming weekend at the iconic Silverstone circuit - the place of the very first Formula One World Championship Grand Prix.

Formula 3 has visited Silverstone every year since the first year of the series in 2019, except for the 2021 season. Silverstone has always produced some great action when Formula 3 has raced there with a lot of overtaking thanks to the great circuit layout.

Last year in 2023, there was a flurry of action all beginning on Friday, which is qualifying day but with also the morning practice session starting the weekend off in style.

It would be home hero Luke Browning who would top the free practice session, in what would have been a memorable moment for the Brit, who was a rookie at the time. Unfortunately for him, he would not get pole position for the feature race.

Instead it would be a memorable session for Trident who secured a 1-2 for Silverstone with Italian Leonardo Fornaroli taking pole position ahead of his fellow rookie teammate Oliver Goethe. The gap was just over a tenth, 0.126s to be exact. Josep 'Pepe' Maria Marti would finish third for Campos.

Excitement would be for both the sprint and feature races to come that weekend. Up first, was the turn of the sprint race with Colombian racer Sebastian Montoya from reverse grid pole and would be joined by British MP Motorsport driver Jonny Edgar.

By the chequered flag it would be a win for Edgar's MP Motorsport teammate, Franco Colapinto, who would take the victory. The Williams Academy driver managed to win the race after passing Montoya and Taylor Barnard who came together on lap 13 straight after the safety car restart.

It was a fascinating sprint race with the very interchanging conditions with many drivers using wet tyres and dry tyres and which tyres were more suitable kept changing too. Many track battles came to life with a battle for the final point going all the way to the final corner of the final lap.

Colapinto took victory ahead of the eventual 2023 Formula 3 champion Gabriele Bortoleto, who was second, while Australian Christian Mansell took a podium for Campos in third.

In terms of the Sunday feature race, where the Formula One Grand Prix points scoring system would be in place for the top 10 with a maximum of 26 available for a driver if they were to clinch victory as well as the fastest lap.

At the end of a race that had changing conditions once again at Silverstone. This time the race was the Sunday feature race and it would be the Trident pair to start from the front row. Both would take their maiden Formula 3 win if they were to take victory.

It would be Oliver Goethe who would take the flag to win for the first time in the series ahead of his teammate Leonardo Fornaroli, who made it a Trident 1-2! Pepe Marti finished third, where he started, to complete the podium.

The Silverstone circuit is made up of 5.891km and 18 corners, which form this iconic layout. The corners and straights have legendary names which are well known around the motorsport world.

Corners such as Copse, Maggots and Becketts, Brooklands as well as straights such as the Wellington and Hangar straights. 

Two DRS zones add to the flurry of overtaking opportunities that this circuit has to offer. The DRS zones run into Brooklands and Stowe, with overtaking opportunities also available into Copse and the Vale chicane.

The lap record around this circuit in FIA Formula 3 was set by the Hitech of Juri Vips in the 2019 season. A lap of 1:43.902 is the record that is set.

In terms of racing action to come this weekend, there will be 18 laps on Saturday for the sprint race with 22 laps coming on the Sunday in the feature race. Plenty of action to come with a lot of laps for fans to get excited about.

James Wharton to make Formula 3 debut for Hitech in place of Stenshorne

A change to the regular grid will be made this coming weekend at Hitech as McLaren junior Martinius Stenshorne will be replaced by Australian 17-year old James Wharton for this round at Silverstone.

Wharton will make his Formula 3 debut in place of Stenshorne, who was handed a ban for this event back in Imola after he was found to be in breach of the sporting regulations as he had competed at Silverstone in another series. This therefore giving an unfair advantage to Stenshorne under the guidelines.

The FIA would not budge on the decision meaning that Hitech would have to source a replacement for this round, to fill the space of the car 15 that was driven by Martinius Stenshorne, who had competed at Silverstone in the GB3 championship in the off season.

In Stenshorne's place would be Australian driver James Wharton, who is in just his third year of open-wheel racing. Wharton in 2024 has been competing in his rookie season of Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine (FRECA) where currently sits sixth in the standings.

Wharton has previously raced in championships such as the Italian Formula 4 and the ADAC Formula 4 Championship. Wharton's only open-wheel racing title came in 2023 as he clinched the Formula 4 UAE Championship.

It will be  a big chance for Wharton at Hitech with his first experience in support of a Formula One Grand Prix weekend. He will partner up with two Brits as his teammates in Cian Shields and Luke Browning.

A look back to the previous round: Round 6 - Austria

Last time out in Formula 3, the championship headed to a staple of the championship's calendar for round six of 10 at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.

It would be the start of the second half to the season after the first half was completed in the round in Spain, which was the round prior to Austria. Just last weekend is when the cars went racing around the Red Bull Ring.

Leonardo Fornaroli would come into the round at Spielberg with the lead of the Driver's Championship with the championship tight like it had been all year. 

On Friday, practice and qualifying would kick start the action of the weekend before the two races to come on Saturday and Sunday. It would be home Austrian hero Charlie Wurz, who would have the pace in the morning to top the time sheets for Jenzer Motorsport. A great moment for Wurz in front of his home crowd.

In the day's later qualifying session, it would be British talent Luke Browning who would take pole position with a fantastic lap time for Hitech. The Williams Academy driver would start from pole position for the Sunday feature race.

It would be a British 1-2 with Prema racing's Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad taking second place. Lindblad would miss out by just less than a tenth of a second (0.084s). Tim Tramnitz, fellow Red Bull junior to Lindblad, would take third for MP Motorsport.

The Saturday sprint race would be enthralling with a lot of great battling going on up and down the field.

Bulgarian Nikola Tsolov would take his second victory of the season for ART Grand Prix. The Alpine Academy driver would beat McLaren junior Martinius Stenshorne who would come across the line to take his second podium of the season for Hitech. Tsolov's ART teammate Christian Mansell would take third place.

On Sunday, attention turned to the feature race. It would be a fantastic drive from pole-sitter Luke Browning who would have the measure over his rivals to take victory at the Red Bull Ring and to take over the championship lead. He would have two Prema drivers and two championship contenders joining him on the podium. 

Gabriele Mini and Dino Beganovic would join Browning up on the podium. Mini would finish second while Beganovic would be third.

A difficult weekend for Leonardo Fornaroli, who led the championship coming into the round in Austria. However, after a track limit violation, which saw his lap deleted, he was dropped to 24th overall. He would finish 12th in the sprint and ninth in the feature and would lose the championship lead.

After the round, Browning took the lead of the championship by 11 points to Gabriele Mini who moved up to second place. Fornaroli  dropped to third and sat 20 points of Browning's tally of 106 points.

A lot of excitement as all still to play for! Siverstone round awaits

Exciting times in FIA Formula 3 enters the final four rounds of the season as the championship heads to Silverstone for round seven of the championship.

The championship is extremely tight heading into the round with still more than three drivers who could take the championship glory by the final round in Monza.

Who will take the title is still very much unclear but all is very much to play for. Free Practice will get underway on Friday morning

Formula 3 schedule for UK viewers and the track times. Credit: Glenn Carr - F1 Journal

Brandon Whiteside 
​Writer - F1 Journal