FIA F3 in Barcelona
Just one week after the FIA Formula 3’s first ever trip to Monaco, the highly competitive junior series came to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for round 4 of the championship.
In qualifying on Friday evening Taylor Barnard was on fire and was within the top spots during all three runs. In the end he qualified in position 2 with just a quarter of a second behind the pole position. Nikita Bedrin qualified in P14 just 0.067s behind P12 which would be the pole position for the sprint race.
In the sprint race all three PHM Racing drivers Piotr Wisnicki, Sophia Flörsch and Roberto Faria improved with really good overtakes in the race and finished higher than their qualifying positions. Sophia 21st position, Roberto 24th position and Piotr 25th position. Both PHM Racing drivers Nikita Bedrin and Taylor Barnard, who are racing for our partner team Jenzer-Motorsport, were fighting for the points the whole race. After 21 laps Taylor finished in P9, taking two points home and for the first time this season Nikita finished in P10 getting his first FIA F3 championship point for that.
At the feature race Taylor Barnard was starting from the front row for the first ever time. He had a good get away from the line and fighted for first place at the outside line of turn 1. But Marti ran him off the road and Taylor had to back out of the fight. After a few laps running in P2 Taylor’s struggle with the tires began. The setup was not optimal and he had more tire wear than the cars around him. He tried everything to defend his positions but in the end he just had no grip left anymore and crossed the finish line in 9th position. Nikita Bedrin was very close to the points again finishing in P11. Sophia and Piotr moved through the field together and finished in 20th and 21st position. Roberto had nice fights in the race and finished in 24th.
Our Formula 3 team will hit the track again at the end of June at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, where our Formula 4 team achieved two race wins a couple of weeks ago during the second round of the ACCR F4 championship.
