RACE PACE POSITIVES AHEAD OF MONACO

Despite the frustration of again coming close to points in the FIA Formula 3 series at Imola, Austria’s Joshua Dufek will head to the streets of Monaco this coming weekend in good heart.

The Hitech TGR driver, who started the opening race of round two in Bahrain from pole position before being taken out of the race by another driver, arrived at the Circuit Enzo e Dino Ferrari hopeful of at least another shot at starting at the front of the field, but found his silver-and-black #15 machine more than a little wayward during the opening 45-minute practice session. Unable to drive as confidently as he would normally have done, the 20-year-old found himself at the wrong end of the timesheets and with work to do ahead of the lone qualifying session that would follow later in the day.

“I really wasn’t happy with how the car felt over the kerbs and, at Imola, you have to use a lot of kerb for a fast time,” Dufek reported. “It just felt very unsettled and that affects your confidence, especially when you’re pushing for a good lap.”

Fortunately for the Austrian, there was enough of a gap between sessions to allow his mechanics to fully inspect the car, and find an explanation for its reluctance to ride the kerbs effectively. Armed with a repaired machine, and the belief that he could now return to driving it with confidence, Dufek attacked the qualifying session, improving his lap time almost every time he crossed the timing beam. In a series as closely-matched as FIA F3, however, tenths — and even hundredths — of a second can result in a big difference in grid position and, even though his performance was vastly better than it had been in practice, Dufek still found himself 19th out of the 30 drivers on the timesheets.

“It was great that the team could pinpoint the issue that had been affecting the car in practice, and do so before we had to go out for qualifying,” Dufek noted, “but the earlier session had kind of conditioned me not to expect so much limit in the handling of the car and, even though I was getting quicker with every flying lap, I probably needed more time to unlock all the speed that was in it.”

With qualifying playing a large part in determining how raceday works out in the FIA F3 series, Dufek knew that he needed to pull out all the stops in Saturday morning’s sprint race. A good start vaulted him three places up the order in the opening laps before a typical midfield scrap, twice interrupted by the safety car which bunched the field up and erased any gains that had been made, saw the Hitech car yo-yo around the order through the middle of the race before Dufek was again able to capitalise on his ability to gain places in the closing stages, eventually finishing 14th on the road.

Starting from the same position in Sunday’s equally-early feature race, Dufek found himself denied the sort of place-gaining opening he had enjoyed the previous day but, nevertheless, was able to gradually move up the order with some well-timed passing moves, eventually finishing 15th overall.

“Unfortunately, our qualifying result undid the remainder of the weekend for us,” Dufek lamented. “Starting from where we did made it very hard to fight for points unless something dramatic happened at the front of the field.

“That being said, however, I was able to make up a significant number of places in both races, got good starts in each and our race pace was good, all of which is positive as we head to the second of three rounds in as many weeks, in Monaco this weekend. Qualifying will be even more important there, and I aim to be on top of it.”

Round four of the 2025 FIA F3 Championship takes place on the streets of Monaco, over the weekend of 22-25 May.