Written by Sean McKean
Starting tomorrow on July 26th, the FIA Formula 3 grid will tackle the daunting Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. Despite the task of taking on this circuit, the championship fight is still tight – with the top five separated by 22 points – as we head into the penultimate round of the season.
However, the already difficult 7.004-kilometre (4.352-mile) circuit will be affected by rain for practice, qualifying, and the sprint race. In a press conference attended by DIVEBOMB, drivers Oliver Goethe and Christian Mansell spoke on how they will tackle both the track and this challenge along with it.
Goethe enters this round seventh in the standings, 30 points from the top. Now in his second year, he plans to use previous experience to help plan for the weather.
“We’ll see what the weather’s like at Spa,” he said. “The weather is really unpredictable here. Often, it’s a bit like what we had at Silverstone where it’s raining and then drying and then raining. The important thing is to be on the right tyres and maximise everything on maybe the one lap you will get.”
In Goethe’s rookie season, he wasn’t able to participate in the qualifying session here – one also affected by on-and-off rain – as he suffered an engine failure. However, this doesn’t change how the German-Danish driver wants to look at the weekend.
“Last year here was wet in quali, but my engine blew up, so I didn’t manage to do anything there. So hopefully that won’t happen this year.
“You just have to be on the right tyre and maximise your lap. There’s nothing else really to prepare for. We’ll see what the weather is like,” Goethe concluded.
As for Christian Mansell, he enters this round 22 points from the top of the standings – only a DNF separating him from the lead. Using his experience from both 2022 and 2023, Mansell knows what to expect with F3 at Spa.
“I think you know with quali around Spa, everyone’s going to sort of jostle for position a bit.”
With him and his team being at the back of the pit lane, the Australian isn’t thrilled at the possibility of a full-dry qualifying. But if the session were to be wet, he sees it as a positive.
“Us, as in ART, being at the back of the pit lane is not really where I would like to be as far as a dry qualifying, but a wet qualifying, you could be on the optimum grip of the track, because obviously you got another 20 or so cars clearing the water in front of you, so that’s obviously a bit better. But then as we’ve seen last weekend, you’re prone to the red flag window at the end of the session where everyone’s sort of pushing.
“At a point, this is F3, so it’s going to be messy, it’s gonna be about adaptability. I think that if you can maximise the package and yourself in qualifying, at the end of the day, that’s all you can really ask for,” he finished.
The F3 drivers will take to the track for practice at 09:45 CEST (08:45 UK).
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