Three days of F2 and F3 in-season testing flags off at BIC

Bahrain International Circuit (BIC), ‘The Home of Motorsport in the Middle East’, hosted today the first day of in-season testing for the FIA Formula 2 Championship and the FIA Formula 3 Championship.

The joint-sessions ran from morning to night and it involved 22 runners from F2 and 30 from F3 – Formula 1’s two chief feeder series.

The tests are being held between the first and second rounds on both series’ 2025 calendars. They flagged off their campaigns in Melbourne, Australia earlier this month, and both are set to headline the support race programme in the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2025, taking place 11 to 13 April at BIC. It will be the second round of their respective seasons.

During the morning test, Roman Stanek of Invicta Racing clocked the fastest lap of one minute 44.789 seconds.

Josep Maria Marti of Campos Racing followed 1.815s behind, while Oliver Goethe of MP Motorsport completed the top three 1.966s back. Jak Crawford (+2.243s) of DAMS Lucas Oil was fourth, and Richard Verschoor (+2.270s) in the second MP Motorsport completed the top five.

In the afternoon session, Victor Martins of ART was the best in the test with a fastest lap of 1:42.536. Marti followed 0.048s behind, while Leonardo Fornaroli of Invicta Racing was third 0.178s adrift. Max Esterson (+0.200s) of Trident and Crawford (+0.429s) were in the top five.

Meanwhile, Nikola Tsolov of Campos Racing topped F3’s timesheet in both the morning and afternoon sessions.

Tsolov clocked a best lap of 1:49.336 in the first runs of the day. He was followed by Tuukka Taponen of ART Grand Prix, who was second with a 1:49.517 lap, while Rafael Camara of Trident was third at 1:49.828.

Laurens van Hoepen (1:49.850) in the other ART car and Roman Bilinski (1:49.653) of Rodin Motorsport completed the top five.

In the afternoon, Tsolov went quickest with a best mark of 1:48.901. Taponen and Campos’ Mari Boya were both 0.014s from the leader. Martinius Stenshome (+0.055s) of Hitech TGR ranked fourth in the session, while Alessandro Giusti (+0.126s) of MP Motorsport was fifth.

Testing continues Thursday and Friday (Editor’s note: 27 , 28 March) at BIC. F3 will be first on track from 9.30am to 12noon and then again from 3.15pm to 5.45pm. F2’s running will be from 12.30pm to 3pm and then from 6.30pm to 9pm.

There will be no spectators throughout the three days of in-season testing.