Official F1 Journal Formula 3 Sprint Race Round Up- Bahrain

After a very close qualifying and some really shock drivers starting further down the grid than anticipated, todays 1st Formula 3 Sprint race of the season was anyone's for the taking.

Sprint Race 

The 1st Sprint race of the year, in true Formula 3 style was a beautiful mess of racing from front to back. With 6 rookies  starting inside the top 10, 1 on pole and ART in the hunt for their first win since Barcelona 2022 the atmosphere was frenetic. 
1st Lap- Off the start it was ART team mates Tsolov and Van Hoepen who were first in turn 1, Van Hoepen had the lead on the exit of the 1st corner but Tsolov quickly took the lead back. Further back, Beganovic hit Ramos hard in the side causing him to spin as he(BEG) out breaked himself into turn 1(later he would get a 10 second penalty for the incident.) Beganovic  himself got a puncture in the incident hurting his race and putting him down to 22nd. Olli Goethe got himself up to 13th after the first lap, Forneroli had a good look up the inside of Linblad in turn 1, Tramnitz fell down the order after a tough first corner and Wurz over took Dunne. It was a crazy first lap and the field kept up that level of racing for the whole race. 

Every lap Van Hoepen made the move down the inside of Turn 1, taking the lead from team mate Tsolov who would then get the DRS down to turn 4 and retake the lead. He was relentless lap after lap but Van Hoepen just  couldn't keep the lead . Further back Goethe was moving forward confidently, Browning and Mansell were also gaining places and the fighting at the front was allowing 3 place man Esterson closer to the battle at the front.

Lap 7 and a yellow flag came out briefly for the spinning car of Loake who was in a 5 way battle for 17th and made a brave move up the inside and spun when he didn't have enough room to get around, while he was spinning Browning and Mansell went head to head into turn 5, Browning got the move done but was unfortunately off the circuit when the move was complete and after a brief investigation he got a 10 second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
Lap 9- Linblad (4th) was very close to Esterson (3rd) down the start finish straight, he made a big move into turn 1, the 2 touched,both continued but with Linblad now in 3rd and on the hunt for the 2 ART cars not far ahead of him. Montoya was down in 20th, Sophia Floresch was fighting hard down in 26th and Charlie Wurz despite a strong push forward in the first few laps, had slipped back to 18th. 

From Lap 11 onwards the battle at the front had gone from 2  cars to 4 as Linblad and Fornaroli were with in a second of the lead car, as Van Hoepen was trying everything to get past team mate Tsolov, Fornaroli was mirroring his efforts to pass Linblad, but the fighting at the front only allowed Linblad into the fight for 1st and soon Van Hoepen was the one defending from the 3rd place man, Linblad was unable to get the move done. Until on lap 13 when Van Hoepen made a mistake into turn 11 and lost the rear mid corner making him run wide and letting  Linblad past, and only just managing to keep Fornaroli behind him. 

Lap 14 and the top 6 were all within a second of the man in front and the racing was immense.  Mini had found some late race speed and was moving up at a rate of knots, over taking Boya, Browning and Mansell to get into the fight for the podium places by the closing laps of the race.
​Lap 16 and Linblad had caught leader Tsolov and began his hunt for his first win in Formula 3. He didn't give Tsolov a milliseconds rest and within a lap had passed him for the lead, almost bringing Van Hoepen with him but again Tsolov managed to keep his team mate behind for 1 more lap, till on lap 17 Van Hoepen finally made the move stick as Tsolovs tyres started to run out of tread. Linblad had disappeared up the road and when the final lap stared the leader was 4 seconds down the road from 2nd place.

Mini was not done for the day, and on the last lap gave it everything to get past Esterson but after some absolutely mega racing between the 2 in the closing of the race and a photo finish across the line the young American Easterson held onto 6th place. Goethe got Browning in the final moments of the race and despite finishing in the top 10 after Browning's 10 second penalty was applied  he finished 15th. Montoya couldnt do better than 18th, Rookie and son of former F1 driver Alex Wurz, Charlie Wurz finished 19th on his F3 debut. 
But it was Rookie Linblad who stole the day winning his an F3 race on his first time of trying, but its hard to ignore the talent all the way down the grid. 19 laps of continuous racing with from 1st to 30th and there were only 2 minor incidents  that only required a momentary Yellow flag is a real testament to quality and talent we have in Formula 3 2024  

Sprint Race Result

1 LIN            2 VAN
3 FOR          4 TSO
5 TRA           6 EST
7 MIN            8 BOY
9 GOE          10 MEG
11 STE         12 DUN
13 BED         14MAN
15 BRO(+10)16 INT
17 VOI           18 MON
19 WUR         20 SZT
21 RAM          22 LEO
23 FLO           24 DUF
25 WIS           26 SHI 
27 LOA           28 SMI
​29 BEG           30
​

Joanna Blackmore 
Writer f1journal.co.uk