 Credit: Alex Capparos To kick start a brand new era of machinery in FIA Formula 3, Prema Racing's Noel Leon was fastest in the opening day of pre-season testing on Wednesday. Leon, in the afternoon, laid down the day's quickest lap time to kick start 2025 in the best possible way for the Prema Racing team. The Mexican racing driver set a 1:27.711 which was good enough to be the fastest time of the day - beating the morning session's top time of 1:27.959 set by Rodin Motorsport's Callum Voisin. The opening day of pre-season testing brought about the first on-track action for the brand new FIA Formula 3 Championship cars that the teams and drivers will be learning to master in these upcoming test sessions ahead of the main season. Leon was quickest on the day overall ahead of MP Motorsport's Tim Tramnitz and Rodin Motorsport's Louis Sharp, who completed the top three. Tramnitz and Sharp's afternoon times were their personal best laps and they would be good enough to have them finishing second and third in the overall classification. This day one, on Wednesday, would be the start of the only pre-season testing for the 2025 FIA Formula 3 Championship. Wednesday being the start of a three-day test at a familiar circuit in the Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya, which is home to the Spanish round of the regular championship season. How Day 1 of FIA Formula 3 pre-season testing unfolded in BarcelonaWednesday morning rolled around and it would be time for a new era of FIA Formula 3 to begin with the 2025 cars heading onto the track for the very first time, for pre-season testing at the Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya. The 10 teams, including newcomers DAMS Lucas Oil who replaced Jenzer Motorsport on the grid, after Jenzer left the championship at the end of the 2024 campaign. 29 drivers out of the 30 would be confirmed to compete in the regular racing season of the 2025 FIA Formula 3 Championship. The sole driver who was not confirmed for a space in the 2025 season, would be German racing driver Jonas Reid, who would be participating for AIX Racing and would e hoping to try and impress the team in trying to earn a seat for their 2025 lineup alongside Javier Sagrera and Nicola Marinangeli.
Pre-season testing for 2025 would get underway with a green light that had come on at the end of the pit lane to signal the beginning of the first three-hour session of the day and the first of the three-day test. Drivers would head out onto the circuit and be looking to set lap times and get to grips with the new machinery as this would be the very first time that the FIA Formula 3 2025 car would be out on a race track. ART Grand Prix had an impressive 2024 and after a disappointing 2023 they finished third in last season's standings with Christian Mansell, Nikola Tsolov and Laurens Van Hoepen. Staying for his second season, Van Hoepen would be accompanied by his rookie teammates Tuukka Taponen and James Wharton who had both had a race weekend of Formula 3 each. Van Hoepen, Taponen and Wharton would make themselves the top three to beat with the ART showing strong pace in the early stages of testing with the experience of Van Hoepen leading his two rookie teammates. With an hour to go, it would continue to be an all-ART top three with Van Hoepen top of the time sheets ahead of his teammates Taponen and Wharton, who were impressing in the opening session of pre-season testing. There would be a change to the top five as new Portuguese racer Ivan Domingues would move himself up into fifth place, going ahead of Red Bull junior and Campos driver Nikola Tsolov. Domingues' teammate Theophile Nael would improve to ninth. Four tenths would separate the two Van Amersfoort Racing teammates as Domingues would make an improvement on a second lap to extend the gap from two tenths to four to his teammate Nael. The improvement from Domingues would not improve the position of fifth. With half an hour to go, all three of the ART drivers would still be sitting at the top of the time sheets with the time of 1:28.568 of Van Hoepen's being still good enough to be the fastest time. Boya, Inthraphuvasak, Del Pino, Lacorte, Zagazeta and Ho still had not set a lap time with the little time remaining of the three-hour morning session in Barcelona. They were all in the pit lane and it would be close as to whether they would get any lap times in. There had been excitement to see Zagazeta, Lacorte and Ho as the new DAMS Lucas Oil team, who were replacing Jenzer Motorsport. The French outfit were still waiting on their first representative lap time with 20 minutes remaining. With just 15 minutes of the session left, the pace of the ART team would be beaten by the pace of the Rodin Motorsport team as Polish driver Roman Bilinski jumped up to the top of the time sheets with a 1:28.150. Bilinksi's teammate Louis Sharp would go second but both drivers would be beaten by their other Rodin Motorsport teammate Callum Voisin. The only non-rookie of Rodin Motorsport's 2025 lineup would go to the top with a 1:27.959. A great lap from Voisin! Soon enough the session would run to a close and that excellent burst of pace from the Rodin Motorsport cars saw them make it an all-Rodin top three with the more experienced of the three, Callum Voisin, ending the session top of the time sheets ahead of his rookie teammates Roman Bilinski and Louis Sharp Voisin's best lap time was a 1:27.959 where the Rodin cars finished first, second and third ahead of the ART drivers who were fourth, fifth and sixth - in the order of Laurens Van Hoepen, Tuukka Taponen and James Wharton. In seventh place, of the morning session, would be to Van Amersfoort's Portuguese rookie Ivan Domingues, who was just ahead of Bulgarian Nikola Tsolov who ended the session in eighth. Prema's Noel Leon was ninth while Van Amersfoort's Theophile Nael completed the top 10. The teams and drivers would take a break for lunch before returning for the day's afternoon pre-season testing session with Callum Voisin provisionally having the quickest time of the day so far.
After a break in Barcelona for lunch, it would be time for the first afternoon test of pre-season test as well as the second and final session of the opening day. It had been a busy morning session and a special session in the history of the FIA Formula 3 Championship as a brand new era of machinery had entered a circuit for the very first time and was visible to viewing, with the 2025 drivers and teams getting a feel for the new car and the new challenges it presents. The green light would come on at the end of the pit lane and that would begin the three-hour session with 24 of the 30 drivers looking to continue their day's work. While Mari Boya, Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, Bruno Del Pino would look to set their first lap times of the pre-season testing for their respective teams, Campos and MP Motorsport. Also the brand new team on the block DAMS Lucas Oil would be looking for their first track action of the new era - with drivers Nicola Lacorte, Matias Zagazeta and Christian Ho. Drivers would head out to set some lap times and get some important lap time daft for their engineers and their own respective developments to aid them for their competitive seasons in the main championship ahead of them. After the first hour of the afternoon session, it would be the Prema driver Noel Leon who would go fastest overall and the Mexican driver was fastest from Louis Sharp in the Rodin Motorsport car by a tenth of a second. Nikola Tsolov was third for Campos Racing. By this point, the DAMS Lucas Oil trio had made their mark on the Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya and the FIA Formula 3 Championship as they laid down some lap times and the three drivers would be 15th, 16th and 17th with Ho ahead Zagazeta and Lacorte. There would be change to the top three within the second hour of the three-hour session and Tsolov would be bumped down to fourth by his Campos teammate Mari Boya, who won the feature race around this circuit in 2024. Leon would still remain at the top from Sharp with Boya, Tsolov and Rodin's Roman Bilinski making up the top five. This would be the situation with the times as the clock ticked down to the final hour of the day's pre-season testing action. Into the final half an hour and Leon would once again be holding top spot and would be holding the provisional fastest time of the afternoon session. Leon's time was a 1:27.711 which already was provisionally faster than the morning best time set by Callum Voisin. Voisin's best time in the morning session was a 1:27.959, therefore Leon's time was already clear by two tenths with there being time still to improve on his personal best time which saw him top of the time sheets. However, a major improvement would be the MP Motorsport driver Tim Tramnitz, who put himself up into second place above New Zealand racing driver Louis Sharp, relegating the Rodin driver to third. Leon would remain at the top of the times with his lap time and the Prema driver would end up staying there and finishing fastest in the afternoon session. His lap time of a 1:27.711 meant it was also good enough to be the fastest time across the entire day. The Mexican racer would top the day's times overall but would finish fastest in the afternoon ahead of MP Motorsport's Tim Tramnitz who was second ahead of Rodin Motorsport's Louis Sharp who completed the top three. Tramnitz and Sharp would join Leon in finishing in the top three overall. Campos duo Mari Boya and Nikola Tsolov would finish fourth and fifth respectively in the afternoon session. This would be ahead of Rodin Motorsport's Roman Bilinski who was sixth with Laurens Van Hoepen who was seventh for ART. Van Hoepen was ahead of his ART teammate Tuukka Taponen who was eighth, ahead of Rodin's Callum Voisin who was ninth. The third ART driver of Australian James Wharton completed the top 10 of the afternoon session. Action would return on Thursday for Day 2 of action of pre-season testing in the 2025 FIA Formula 3 Championship. 2025 FIA Formula 3 Championship: Pre-season testing - Barcelona Day 1 overall classification
 Brandon Whiteside
Writer & X Contributor - F1 Journal
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