Penultimate round of the season with a tight championship fight! Formula 3 Belgium preview - Round nine

Formula 3 returns once again this coming weekend for the penultimate round of the 2024 championship, as round nine of 10 will take place before the summer break, this weekend at the iconic Spa Francorchamps.

It will be the penultimate round of the 2024 season with just two rounds to go of the season and the championship battle really hotting up. One round will take place after the summer break, which will be in Monza in September and with the championship set to be decided there.

The driver's championship is set to be extremely tight heading into the final two rounds of the season with 22 points separating the top five in the championship, with the top three all failing to score a point in the most recent race last time out, which was the Hungary feature race.

Gabriele Mini comes into the penultimate round with the championship lead. The Italian Prema driver leads Luke Browning and his own Prema teammate Arvid Lindblad as the top three in the driver's standings are separated by just six points. 

Browning sits second in the standings, four points of the lead with Lindblad sitting third in the standings six points off Mini at the top of the championship. Trident's Leonardo Fornaroli sits just fourth in the standings and only seven points off the top of the championship.lead. All is very much still to play for.

A look at the track - Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium

Formula 3 will head once again for action this weekend and it will be for the penultimate round of the championship, which will take place around the iconic and legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit, home of the Formula One Belgian Grand Prix and many endurance and feeder series chamionships.

The Spa-Francorchamps circuit is often one that produces a lot of great drama across the weekend and has already produced some great FIA Formula 3 moments over the years. Formula 3 has visited Spa Francorchamps, in Belgium, every year in the history of the championship - since the championship became Formula 3 in 2019.

Drivers such as Logan Sargeant, Jack Doohan and Oliver Bearman have took victory in the Formula 3 Championship around the Spa Francorchamps circuit.

​The circuit is the longest in length on the Formula 3 calendar and is 7.004km long and made up of 19 corners that will prove to be great challenges to the drivers including the legendary Eau Rouge.

Two DRS zones make up the circuit with them operating down into La Source (Turn 1) and down the Kemmel Straight into Les Combes (turn 5).

The lap record was set in the inaugural season of FIA Formula 3, in 2019, with Jehan Daruvala holding the lap record, which is a 2:05.125.

When Formula 3 will get down to racing action this weekend, there will be 12 laps in Saturday's sprint race and 15 laps in Sunday's feature race.

The most recent Formula 3 round in Belgium, at the Spa Francorchamps circuit, was in the 2023 championship. The round was also the penultimate round of that year's championship. Very mixed weather conditions across the weekend produced some fantastic drama.

On Friday afternoon, when qualifying rolled around, it would be a very tight qualifying session, with less than a tenth separating the top three in classification. It would be Red Bull junior Josep 'Pepe' Maria Marti who would take pole position for Campos Racing. The Spanish driver would take pole position with a 2:22.160.

Marti would have pole position ahead of Trident's Leonardo Fornaroli who was second, with Gabriele Mini finishing third for Hitech Pulse-Eight.

For the sprint race, a damp track would produce a lot of great excitement from start to finish with three safety car intervals over 12 laps of racing. The race would finish behind the safety car and it would be the Brazilian Caio Collet of Van Amersfoort Racing who would take the victory on Saturday morning.

Collet would keep his car on the road to take first place ahead of Jenzer Motorsport's Taylor Barnard, who came across the line to finish in second place. Prema Racing's Paul Aron would see out the top three and complete the podium.

The feature race would come on Sunday morning in a race that was very changeable in terms of weather conditions when the wet and dry tyres were on different cars, and different drivers were able to have better joy in different parts of the race.

After so much action it would be delight for Barnard and the British driver would take his maiden win in Formula 3 for Jenzer Motorsport as he would take victory in Belgium, ahead of Campos Racing's Christian Mansell, who would finish in second place after making over 20 places from where he started on the grid. Nikita Bedrin would make it a double Jenzer podium in third.

Tuukka Taponen to make Formula 3 debut at ART Grand Prix

Ferrari Academy driver Tuukka Taponen will be set to make his Formula 3 debut this coming weekend at the iconic Spa Francorchamps circuit, for round nine, in replacement of Bulgarian driver and Alpine Academy talent Nikola Tsolov.

Taponen will be replacing Tsolov at this weekend's round in Belgium at ART Grand Prix, the team who sit second in the Teams' Standings. Tsolov will be missing from the round due to being banned for this specific round all the way back in Imola, in May.

Tsolov would be banned because of gaining an unfair sporting advantage according to the 2024 FIA Formula 3 Sporting regulations, article 10.4. Article 10.4 states that drivers must have specific permission from the FIA  and series promoter Formula Motorsports Limited if they wish to participate in testing or race in other single-seater series' alongside F3.

The 17-year old competed in the Eurocup-3 season opener at Spa Francorchamps back in April, therefore breaching this rule. Tsolov would race in the opening round of the Eurocup-3 championship with Spanish team GRS. The Bulgarian driver had previously competed in that championship with GRS, after his rookie F3 season in 2023 had concluded.

Tsolov will therefore miss the round at Spa where he sits eighth in the standings.

In his place and set to make his Formula 3 debut, is young Finland driver and Ferrari Driver Academy member, 17-year old Tuukka Taponen. The 17-year old currently races for R-Ace GP in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, where he sits second in the standings behind championship leader Rafael Camara.

Taponen has picked up four wins in his career so far in FRECA and sitting second in the standings with four rounds to go and now the Finnish driver will make his FIA Formula 3 weekend debut, and will get to show what he can do in a Formula 1 support series, where the eyes of the world will be watching.

A look at the previous round: Round 8 - Hungary

Last time out in the 2024 FIA Formula 3 Championship, the series raced at the Hungaroring, in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, for round eight of 10 in the championship - joining FIA Formula 2 and the Porsche Supercup in acting as a support to the Formula One World Championship's Hungarian Grand Prix.

This would be a round after a week break from Silverstone, which was the final round of a triple header.

Round eight would begin as usual on a Friday with the practice and qualifying sessions taking place ahead of the Saturday sprint race and the Sunday feature race.

Topping the morning practice session would be the Campos driver of Mari Boya. The Spanish driver would finish fastest overall ahead of two Hitech Pulse-Eight cars. Norwegian Martinius Stenshorne would finish second ahead of his Williams Academy teammate Luke Browning who was third.

It would be a dramatic Friday afternoon qualifying session with Luke Browning finding the wall and bringing out the red flag late on in the session. Gabriele Mini and Arvid Lindblad would qualify outside the top 12 as they would be unable to set an additional time as the session would not be restarted. Mini would qualify 13th while Lindblad would be down in 21st at the final classification.

Initially Browning would end the session seventh and would start both races inside the all-important top 12. However, due to the new 2024 FIA F3 Sporting Regulations, as he was the cause of the red flag he would lose his best lap time set in the session. Browning would drop from seventh to 15th.

Josh Dufek would be disqualified for his car being below the minimum required weight as the AIX Racing Austrian driver initially qualified sixth. After the order had been ordered for the final classification, it would see Prema's Dino Beganovic start on reverse grid pole for the sprint race.

It would be a qualifying session that would see an ART 1-2 with Dutch driver Laurens Van Hoepen maintaining his top 12 qualifying finishes in every round so far this season. Van Hoepen would take his maiden Formula 3 pole position with Nikola Tsolov being second quickest. Leonardo Fornaroli would be third quickest for Trident.

Beganovic would start on pole with AIX Racing's Nikita Bedrin starting second on the grid. It would be Bedrin though who would take the top prize as the Italian took his maiden victory in FIA Formula 3.

Bedrin would take victory in an AIX Racing 1-2 as Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak would join his AIX Racing teammate to take his first Formula 3 points and his first podium. Inthraphuvasak would become the first driver in Formula 3 to be on the podium from Thailand.

​ A great achievement for Inthraphuvasak as AIX Racing would become the 10th team out of 10 on the grid to get a podium in the highly competitive 2024 Formula 3 season. Pole sitter for the sprint race Dino Beganovic would finish third for Prema.

For Sunday's feature race, it would be a great drive from Nikola Tsolov, who after taking the lead from Van Hoepen would do enough to keep him behind as the race finished behind the safety car.

Tsolov would take his first feature race win in Formula 3, as it would be an ART 1-2 in the initial classification with Van Hoepen taking second, with Noel Leon taking his feature race podium in third place for Van Amersfoort Racing.

However, after the race, Laurens Van Hoepen would be disqualified for his car being below the minimum required weight, as described by the regulations, therefore he would lose the second place finish.

This would promote Leon to second place with Leonardo Fornaroli taking the crucial third place to bring him into championship contention. The only points for Luke Browning in the sprint race would be the only points gained across the weekend for the top three in the standings. A great weekend for Fornaroli who would score points in both races.

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A look at the championship with two rounds to go

With two rounds to go, the championship is heating up and incredibly tight in terms of the fight for individual glory, with so many drivers in a mathematical chance of championship glory in the 2024 FIA Formula 3 Championship.

As for the teams' standings, 97 points separate Prema at the top of the standings to ART Grand Prix in second place, with Prema seemingly favourites to take the title with the standings possible to be wrapped up by the end of this round, with all focus on the driver's standings by the final round in Monza, in September.

Just 30 points separate the top seven in the standings with just two rounds remaining and either one of the seven drivers could take the championship title by the time the championship season is concluded in the Monza feature race, in September.

Gabriele Mini comes into this round with the lead of the championship with 119 points and has the lead over Williams Academy Hitech talent Luke Browning, who is four points off the lead in second place. Arvid Lindblad sits third in the standings just six points off the championship lead.

Leonardo Fornaroli after a strong haul of points in Hungary is fourth in the standings, seven points from Mini in the championship standings. Seven points separating the top four i the standings, which is incredibly tight, Christian Mansell sits just 22 points off the championship lead in fifth.

Still 30 points separate the top seven in the standings with the potentially two outside challengers of Dino Beganovic in sixth and Oliver Goethe seventh in the standings. All is very much still to play for.

With so much on the line, and such an intense championship battle, you do not want to miss round nine of the FIA Formula 3 Championship, with the weekend's action kicking off on Friday morning for free practice. Action getting underway at 09:45am track time for free practice with the start time for UK viewers being one hour earlier at 08:45am.

2024 FIA Formula 3 Championship: Round 9 - Belgium track times

Track Times

• Free Practice 26/07: 09:45-10:30
• Qualifying 26/07: 15:05-15:35
• Sprint Race 27/07: 09:50-10:30
• Feature Race 28/07: 08:30-09:15

UK Times

• Free Practice 26/07: 08:45-09:30
• Qualifying 26/07: 14:05-14:35
• Sprint Race 27/07: 08:50-09:30
• Feature Race 28/07: 07:30-09:15

Brandon Whiteside
Writer - F1 Journal