After the cancellation of the Emilia-Romagna GP, due to the recent floods that sadly affected reason, F1 is ready to get back on track this weekend for the Monaco Grand Prix, one of the historic and most renowned stages of the championship.
However, Formula 1 will not be the only protagonist of the weekend, given that alongside the top flight there will also be the preparatory categories Formula 2 and Formula 3. If for F2 the most glamorous appointment of the year is no longer a novelty , the story is different for the other cadet series. For the first time since European F3 and GP3 merged in 2019 to create a “new” championship, Monaco will be part of the FIA F3 calendar.
A particularly eagerly awaited appointment, not only because it represents a gem, a challenge that all riders want to win, but also because of the long wait of over a month and a half since the last Grand Prix, which coincided with the Australian Grand Prix at the end of March , another novelty of the 2023 season.
Gabriel Bortoleto, Trident, Gabriele Mini, Hitech Pulse-Eight and Gregoire Saucy, ART Grand Prix during the last Grand Prix held in Australia
Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images
It is a return to the origins, because in reality Monte Carlo had been a stop on the “old” Formula 3 calendar from 1964 to 1997, when Nick Heildfeld won the race. Only on two other occasions did the F3 return to the Principality track: in 2005 and 2012, however when the latter had the name GP3, in fact a separate category born only a few years earlier.
The 2005 edition is probably the one that has remained in the minds of many enthusiasts, not only because it saw the victory of the man who in the future would later set the most important records and numbers in the history of this sport, namely Lewis Hamilton, but also for the many prominent names who have raced and won in various categories over the last decade, such as Sebastian Vettel, Paul di Resta, Loic Duval and Lucas Di Grassi. On that occasion, the Englishman won both rounds of the weekend, crowning a season that would later see him take the title thanks to fifteen wins out of twenty races.
Gabriel Bortoleto, currently leading the standings
Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images
This year Formula 3 arrives in Monaco with a classification situation that sees Bortoleto in the lead with twenty points ahead of Saucy and thirty over the duo Beganovic-Minì. Due to the large grid with more than thirty drivers, the qualifying session will be divided into two groups, as is generally the case also for Formula 2: both group A and group B, established on the basis of the race number of the car, they will have a total of sixteen minutes each.
When announcing the presentation of the 2023 season calendar, the CEO of Formula 3 underlined the importance of having a stage like Monte Carlo also for the preparatory series: “I am very pleased to present the 2023 calendar. It features two new circuits brand, the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne and the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo, which is really amazing. These two very prestigious circuits are the first road circuits added to the F3 calendar. They will offer the teams and drivers a new and exciting challenge and I’m sure fans will love to see the F3 cars racing at both tracks,” explained Bruno Michel.
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