Stenshorne claims fourth F3 podium at Hitech’s home event
Round 7 - Silverstone - Report
Martinius Stenshorne secured back-to-back podiums on Saturday in the FIA Formula 3 Sprint Race at Silverstone, bringing his season tally of top 3 finishes to four. He came through from sixth on the grid to claim a second P2 to go with his two race victories.
Martinius’ race got off to a brilliant start when he seized fourth place at Turn 1, diving past Van Hoepen and Nile with a signature ‘Stenshorne surge’. A Safety Car intervention to recover a stricken car brought the field back together, and when racing resumed entering Lap 5, the fired-up Norwegian dived to the inside of Ho at Turn 4 to take third position.
Nael took the lead a lap later but Martinius kept in touch with the top two, who continued to trade places. With Nael falling back from the now race leader Inthraphuvasak by the halfway point, the Hitech driver bided his time until Lap 14 when a big snap of oversteer for Nael through Copse allowed Stenshorne to close in. With DRS into Stowe, Martinius moved into second.
He spent the remaining laps eating into the leader’s advantage, reducing the gap to 1.1s, but not enough to get himself into DRS range to challenge for the top step. Nonetheless, it was another sensational performance by the McLaren academy driver, who certainly means business in this second half of the season.
For Sunday’s 22-lap Feature Race, the heavens opened just in time for the Grid and with the immediate forecast pointing to intermittent rain for the duration of the race, teams were split on tyre strategy, with some taking Wet Pirelli tyres and others fitted with Hard slick tyres.
Martinius was on the slicks when the rain intensified just as the formation lap started and he spent the next seven laps hoping for a break in the rain that might see the conditions come back to his tyre choice and transform his race. But with the deficit at seven seconds per lap, he had no option but to pit and switch to the Wets.
The downpour continued, resulting in the race being shortened by a Red Flag and Martinius finished down the order in P17.
For Hitech’s new F3 Rookie Nikita Johnson, his weekend got off to a positive start in Practice, which he concluded in P6. Qualifying and the two races proved a greater challenge for the American and teammate Gerrard Xie, and they were unable to make progress towards the points-paying positions.
There’s a short break in the action before the drivers return to the track for Round 8 at Spa-Francorchamps from 25-27 July.