With the end of the second race in Hungary, we are already a third of the way through the 2020 FIA Formula 3 season. And what a season it’s been so far, we’ve had red flagged races, dynamic overtakes and battles galore. But with twelve races to go, how is the championship looking and who do I think has what it takes to take the title?
The top five as it stands are:
Oscar Piastri - Prema (76 Points)
Logan Sargeant - Prema (50 Points)
Théo Pourchaire - ART Grand Prix (48 Points)
David Beckmann - Trident (47.5 Points)
Richard Verschoor - MP Motorsport (45 Points)
Oscar Piastri
What a rookie season the nineteen year old Aussie has had. Qualifying third and despite a collision at the opening race in Austria, Piastri went on to win the race on his debut in the series and has kept himself consistently in the front pack since then, with an eighth place
finish and fastest lap in Race 2. The Styrian Grand Prix Race 1 saw him stay out of trouble in a haphazard race that was red-flagged after several incidents on lap fifteen and take home a respectable fourth with half-points allocated, with a fifth place following in the second race with another two points for the fastest lap.
The races at Hungary saw Piastri have his eyes firmly on the championship, taking home second in both races. Race 1 saw him managing to survive a collision with the spinning Calan Williams at the start, dicing his way to second on the grid before the red flag was brought out and then battling with his teammate Logan Sargeant in the latter half of the race after dropping off from race leader Théo Pourchaire. The second race at the Hungaroring saw Piastri play the game well. After Bent Viscaal, who was leading in race at the time, was awarded a five second penalty for contact with Igor Fraga and another five second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage whilst passing Logan Sargeant; Piastri passed Dennis Hauger to take 3rd and managed to stay within ten seconds of the race leader. A handy safety car, caused by Federico Malvestiti hitting the wall on the exit of Turn 4 with two laps left, ensured Piastri took second place, topping the day off with the fastest lap of the race once again.
The reigning Formula Renault Eurocup winner will want to keep this form up going into the back-to-back races at Silverstone. One of the newest arrivals to the Renault Sport Academy, he’ll be looking to impress the bosses and hopefully earn a Formula 2 drive for the 2021 season; especially as fellow Renault Sport Academy driver Max Fewtrell currently lies 16th in the Championship on five points. And with Fernando Alonso’s return to Renault unlikely to be long-term, could Oscar Piastri become the second Aussie to compete for the French team after compatriot Daniel Ricciardo? With the speed and talent the lad seems to have, I’d be tempted to put a bet on it. Let’s just hope that he keeps it clean for the rest of the season, as the first three rounds have been nothing short of unpredictable.
Logan Sargeant
Land of the free and home of the brave certainly seems an apt analogy of the driver in second place in the Championship, American Logan Sargeant. After only achieving
nineteenth place in the 2019 Formula 3 season with Carlin Buzz Racing, he’s back for another bite at the apple alongside Oscar Piastri and Frederik Vesti at Prema Racing.
Race 1 at Austria saw him more than double his points total from the previous season in one race alone, when he took second place. However, the second race saw disappointment for the American. Whilst battling his teammate Piastri and MP Motorsport’s Bent Viscaal, he picked up a puncture and finished a lap down in twenty-seventh place. On the second weekend at the Red Bull Ring, Race 1 saw Sargeant struggle falling from third to sixth, it would have been seventh as Richard Verschoor passed him on track on lap 12. However, the rules state that if a race cannot be resumed, the results must be taken at the end of the penultimate lap before the race was suspended. The following day, he battled with Théo Pourchaire throughout most of the race for what looked like the final podium place. However, Liam Lawson and Jake Hughes collided on lap 21 of 24 whilst dueling for the race lead, promoting Sargeant to second.
The Hungaroring, which saw Logan Sargeant have two of his four points appearances last year, proved to be a nerve-wracking weekend for the American. After adverse weather conditions saw the qualifying session suspended, it looked likely that the times set in free practice would dictate the grid. This would have been disastrous for Sergeant and his Prema stablemates, Vesti and Piastri, who languished in 23rd, 27th and 28th respectively. Thankfully, qualifying managed to go ahead and Sargeant managed to line up in second on the grid, after having to watch the end of qualifying on his engineer’s phone as he suffered mechanical issues . However, the opening lap of the first race saw him collide with pole sitter Alexander Smolyar at the first corner and recover to finish third. However, a post-race penalty for going off the track and gaining an advantage whilst passing Liam Lawson saw him drop to sixth in the official results. The second race in Hungary managed to provide a bit of irony for Sargeant. He launched from fifth to third at the start but was passed by Bent Viscaal, who was promoted to the podium after Sargeant’s penalty in Race 1. However, Viscaal was later penalised for this move as he went off-track and gained an advantage. After the late safety car and penalties applied saw Viscaal demoted from first to seventeenth, Sargeant managed to hang on for a fourth-placed finish.
Logan Sargeant will have a point to prove heading into Silverstone. Currently 26 points behind Championship Leader Oscar Piastri, he will want to close that gap sooner rather than later. He’ll also want to show off his skills in hope of securing a possible driver academy place as at the moment, he currently has no backing from any teams, unlike teammate Piastri. He’ll need to keep his head down and focus on the championship, as silly mistakes and penalties could be the difference between winning the Drivers’ Title and second.
Théo Pourchaire
What were you doing at sixteen? I was completing my GCSEs, whilst Théo Pourchaire has already managed to break records. The young Frenchman, who won the ADAC Formula 4
Championship last year, has already been taking the grid by storm. A member of the Sauber Junior Team, he’s certainly been doing his supporters proud so far in an incredibly difficult season for the drivers.
The first two races in Austria were a fairly mundane affair for Pourchaire, qualifying twentieth with thirteenth and twenty-sixth place finishes respectively. However, the sixteen year old driver managed to pick himself back up and show the talent that saw him promoted to Formula 3. A much improved qualifying position of fifth on the return to Red Bull Ring and keeping the car out of trouble in the chaotic first race saw him take ninth place. However, Race 2 saw Pourchaire come alive on track and take full advantage of the mistakes around him. He took the lead off the start, however whilst dealing with Jake Hughes, Liam Lawson fired through to take the lead and Hughes later took second. He spent much of the race watching Lawson and Hughes duel for the lead whilst fending of Sargeant. However, when the leading duo clashed and were forced to retire, Pourchaire was the happy beneficiary and with the safety car brought out, nobody could take the lead away from him. The win saw the Frenchman become the youngest winner in Formula 3 or it’s predecessor GP3’s history, beating now Panasonic Jaguar Formula E Racing driver Mitch Evans by four days.
Pourchaire was chomping at the bit in Hungary. A strong qualifying session saw him line up third on the grid and he seemed to have luck on his side once again. When second place Sargeant lost the rear of his car and collided with pole sitter Smolyar, Pourchaire inherited the lead. He kept the lead after the following safety car and then the red flag after Lawson’s Hitech car caught fire. The restart saw him set two consecutive fastest laps to pull a 1.7s gap as DRS was enabled. As second place Piastri was forced to defend from his teammate Sargeant, Pourchaire drove into the sunset, pulling a 10s gap and saw him become the first repeat winner of the year and take the fastest lap as Hughes was ineligible for the points as he finished outside the top 10.
Third place in the standings after six races demonstrates clearly that this young lad has talent. The second youngest driver on the grid, Roman Staněk is six-months younger than him, could we see Théo Pourchaire become the youngest winner of the Formula 3 Championship and its predecessor the GP3 Series? Well, after seeing the calibre of driving he has, I certainly think he is going to challenge for the title all the way. But will his relative youth and inexperience prove to be stumbling blocks for him? Only time will tell…
David Beckmann
It’s been bend it like Beckmann on his return to Formula 3 this year. After competing for Jenzer Motorsport and Trident in GP3 in 2018 and in Formula 3 last year, where he finished in fourteenth after having to withdraw from the final round in Sochi due to a family
emergency. The German received a last minute call-up to Trident on the eve of the season opener in Austria as Devlin DeFrancesco dropped out of the seat due to reasons undisclosed.
The opening two races in Austria saw him start the season in a solid fashion. Seventh in qualifying was converted to seventh in Race 1 and fourth in Race 2, after managing to lead in the opening stages of the second race. The return to Austria saw Beckmann split the Prema duo of Vesti and Sargeant to start second and he managed to hold on to that position in the red-flagged Race 1. Race 2 saw him become the first driver this season to return to the podium at the same weekend, when he brought his Trident home in third.
It was a qualifying to forget in Budapest, which saw Beckmann line up fourteenth. He managed to get up into the points in tenth and start on the reverse-grid pole. He might not have been the man of the hour in Race 2 but he ended up taking all the spoils after Viscaal was given two five second penalties. The six second gap Viscaal had managed still wouldn’t have been enough to deny Beckmann the lead and the safety car appearance with two laps remaining just solidified this. Earlier in the wet conditions, Beckmann had struggled to pass Hauger for third after being passed by the charging Viscaal. However, once the track began to dry he managed to pass Hauger and match Viscaal’s pace, preventing him from extending the six second gap. The second race gave David Beckmann his maiden win in the series on his twentieth appearance for the twenty year old driver.
Beckmann will be hoping this confidence boost translates into success at Silverstone. He currently lies fourth, 28.5 points adrift of Piastri with the .5 being the result of half-points being awarded for the first race of the Styrian Grand Prix weekend. As he has failed to win any single-seater series so far and has not finished higher than fourth in a series, you have to wonder whether he has the abilities to take the challenge to Piastri at front. However, this season has already thrown up many surprises so I would not underestimate his chances, even though this might be a David versus Goliath battle.
Richard Verschoor
He might be the flying Dutchman, but Verschoor is yet to soar in Formula 3 this season. Off the back of his win at the 2019 Macau Grand Prix, he returned to MP Motorsport for his
second season in Formula 3 and seems to be having more success this time around.
He would have been hungry for more podiums at Hungary, but alas it was not to be. The qualifying session saw him line up in eighth with teammate Bent Viscaal behind him in ninth. Race 1 saw him in the mix of a DRS train with Sargeant, Sebastián Fernández and Viscaal and take the jump to pass Fernández into fourth. However, he lost this position in the dying moments of the race when his teammate Viscaal passed him on the final lap to take fourth, although he was later promoted back to fourth after Sargeant was issued with a post-race penalty. Viscaal managed to get him again in Race 2 after the safety car period finished, leaving Verschoor to end up in fifth after his teammate was issued with two five second penalties.
At the moment, Verschoor has shown definite ability but has yet to show the promise that saw fellow countryman Max Verstappen promoted to Formula 1. Despite being 35 points behind Piastri in the Championship, Verschoor will know that he needs to put in consistently strong performances from now on to take the title. After all, Keke Rosberg won the 1982 Formula One World Championship, despite only winning one race. I’d say Richard Verschoor is more of an outlier for the title and he’ll need to be careful, because if his compatriot and teammate Bent Viscaal puts in performances like he did in Hungary, he could swiftly become the one to watch at MP Motorsport
Conclusion
Overall, I’d be putting my money on Oscar Piastri to bring it home for Prema Racing once again. The driver has demonstrated the calibre of racing to prove himself on track, with the race craft and common sense to know when to put the long-term goal of winning the Championship at the forefront and make calculated risks. It’ll be that conservatism and consistency that should hopefully see him win the series and progress to Formula 2 next season. Who knows, he may end up in a three-way battle with fellow Renault Sport Academy drivers Christian Lundgaard and Guanyu Zhou for the Formula 1 seat when Fernando Alonso retires again. The two-year contract the Spaniard has signed with Renault can only serve to help the young Aussie on his quest, by delaying the opportunities Lundgaard and Zhou have for promotion.
Further down the Championship, I would also keep an eye on Frederik Vesti in the other Prema and Liam Lawson in the Hitech. Vesti has had some promising showings in Formula 3 but also his share of bad luck. The 2019 Formula Regional Champion took pole at the second weekend in Austria and managed to take the win; although he’ll be disappointed that in a race that demonstrated his maturity in conditions that caught many out, the red-flag meant that only half points were awarded. Sadly, Hungary was a weekend to forget for Vesti. Race 1 saw him collide with the spinning Jenzer of Calan Williams and be forced to retire and Race 2 saw déjà vu for the Dane as he was forced to retire once again.
Liam Lawson had a cracking start to the season, winning the second race in Austria in a dominant fashion. However, a string of misfortune and driver errors have seen him record three retirements on the bounce. A late collision between him and Jake Hughes whilst scrapping out for the lead of the second race in Austria the following weekend, has been followed by his car catching fire in the first race in Hungary. The weekend only went from bad to worse for the Kiwi, as a mechanical issue forced him to retire once again.
With Formula 3 returning next week with a triple header, two consecutive races at Silverstone and a trip to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, it’ll be all to play for. And with a rookie leading the championship, it seems to be the new kids on the block might be showing the returning drivers up.
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