Formula 3 Pre-Season testing for 2025 is now complete and all eyes are focused on the season opener in Australia in under a fortnight. But what did the drivers and teams make of their first foray onto the track, especially with the brand new Formula 3 car for 2025? Let’s take a look at what the drivers from Hitech had to say.
Martinius Stenshorne
About to enter his second season in Formula 3, Martinius Stenshorne finished both days of testing in seventeenth and fourteenth respectively. The Norwegian Driver won the third race of the year last year, the Sprint Race in Melbourne, and finished in second place in Austria. He also ended the season on a strong note with a fifth place finish in Monza as well as claiming the fastest lap. He seems to have carried that momentum into this year with his mindset and notes that for him, the changes to the F3 car were not that challenging to get on top of.
“It was good to be back in Barcelona to test out the new car. And then it was closer than I think we expected. So, and then it was, in my opinion, not so big difference. Of course, there are a few here and there, but overall, I think there were not so big differences. And I felt more the difference was in the tyres. I think that’s something that we have to keep working on and finding more out about and also for the race run.” – Martinius Stenshorne
As the de facto team leader at Hitech this year, it will be interesting to see how his experience and confidence behind the wheel translate to on-track results for both himself and his teammates.
Joshua Dufek
There’s no denying that 2024 was a character-building year for the British-born, Austrian-Swiss driver. With only one point on the board that came at the end of the season in Monza and a qualifying disqualification taking him out of contention in Budapest, it was very much a season of what if.
“It was a bit of a difficult year for me (in 2024). It didn’t really go the way I expected it to go and I think I had many races, like you said, where I felt like I could have done better. I think, towards the end of the season, well, Barcelona was one of them for sure, but then also Monza, I felt.” – Joshua Dufek
But despite this, Joshua isn’t letting the misfortunes of last season weigh him down. He finished pre-season testing in twenty-first and twenty-fifth place respectively at the end of the first and second day. Dufek feels that there are positives to take from this as he heads into the new season, especially as he changes from AIX to Hitech.
“I definitely feel like the potential is there and I think with Hitech now I feel like I have the right tools with me to improve and to be further up front where I feel I belong.” – Joshua Dufek
Gerrard Xie
The Hong Kong-born driver will be the sole rookie for Hitech in 2025. In 2024, he competed in the Formula Regional Oceania Championship, GB3 and the Euroformula Open Championship. He accumulated 6 podiums across the categories, including 3 wins. In pre-season testing, the new Hitech driver put in a solid performance, finishing in eighteenth and nineteenth place. Now, Xie seems ready to just get stuck into the season ahead and see what happens.
“I think that for my first season I need to just keep improving myself, along with these two amazing teammates and then we’ll see how it goes.” – Gerrard Xie
Each driver at Hitech seems keen to get stuck in in 2025. All have a cautious optimism about them and believe that they each have what it takes to move up through the field. With a season under their belts for two of them and a strong foundation for the third, it would be surprising to not see these three in the mix over the course of the season. And as we all know, anything can happen in Formula 3, and it usually does.
Read Next: Formula 3 Testing recap
Formula 3 commences its 2025 championship in Australia on 14th-16th March.
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