F2/F3 Power Rankings – Another MANIC Melbourne trip for F1 hopefuls

Isack Hadjar in F2 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

GPFans Feature

F2/F3 Power Rankings – Another MANIC Melbourne trip for F1 hopefuls

Ferrari took more than one victory Down Under as questionable stewarding dominated discussions

Jim Kimberley

Tuesday 26 March 2024 15:51 Updated: 16:53

The second trip to Australia for Formula 1's primary two support series was as eventful as last year's first.

Formula 2 and Formula 3 thrilled with on-track action, and the FIA stewards' decisions provided plenty of debate off-track.

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The discourse over Nikola Tsolov's three-place grid drop for intentionally crashing into Alex Dunne on Friday intensified after Isack Hadjar lost his win for unintentionally hitting his teammate on Saturday.

Poetically, the Frenchman shrugged off the incident to win again on Sunday.

In F3, Dino Beganovic preceded Ferrari's victorious day with another triumph, as frontrunners emerged in the third tear.

Here are the best junior drivers from Down Under.

Formula 2

Isack Hadjar - A

Red Bull Junior driver Hadjar saw both sides of luck on his racing weekend around Melbourne and left the state of Victoria nine positions higher than when he arrived.

Was Hadjar responsible for Pepe Marti and Gabriel Bortoleto's shortened Sprint Race? Absolutely. Should a starting line overtake result in a penalty like he received? Precedent suggests not.

Nonetheless, Hadjar was in a league of one in the Sprint, and karma evened it all out when he maximised the safety car's timing in the Feature to win out with his second of two controlling Alber Park drives.

Paul Aron - B+

Rookie Estonian driver Paul Aron is still my surprise package for Formula 2 in 2024 and is now the only entry to enjoy a podium trip at every round of the season.

Aron was unfortunate not to avoid the fallout of Andrea Kimi Antonelli's Sprint Race spin and was in the fight for another visit to the rostrum if not for the Mercedes junior's mistake.

Like Hadjar, Sunday was a tale of redemption, and the Hitech racer looked fired up and ready to show Toto Wolff that there was another driver in his academy who could've stepped up instead of being dropped.

Victor Martins - B-

A messy weekend for most of the F2 field means even the driver who tried to replicate Alex Albon's Friday crash and started both races on the back row can make my top three.

Victor Martins was either skilful, lucky, or both to keep his ART out of the barriers in qualifying, but advanced TWENTY-SEVEN positions when combining both races' final classifications by keeping his head down.

With the Frenchman expected to be a championship challenger, things look dire down in 18th place in the standings, but he'll hope to use his six Australian points to launch into the European season and put his year back on track.

Formula 3

Dino Beganovic - A

I was astonished to find Dino Beganovic was not already an F3 race-winning driver when commentator Chris McCarthy announced his victory on Sunday.

The Ferrari Driver Academy hopeful has made four previous trips to collect silverware in the series and is often fighting near the front, but Melbourne is where he finally reached the top step.

Biding his time and learning how the two drivers in front of him were racing was the key to Beganovic's win, and his intelligent racing and overtaking to jump from third to first earned him a mature win.

Leonardo Fornaroli - A

Forget Carlos Sainz and Ferrari. What a great weekend F3 for Italian race fans, with Leonardo Fornaroli taking pole position and Beganovic's Italian PREMA team taking the Feature win flanked by two Italian starlets.

Forna is meant to lead his Trident team as the driver with the most experience but finished behind his two newcomer teammates in Bahrain's Feature Race.

Not so in Australia, and the Italian hopeful surged to pole position and led most of Sunday's 23 laps before settling for P2 and now sits alongside Luke Browning atop the F3 standings.

Campos Racing - B+

I could put Gabriele Mini here for his stellar efforts, but I must highlight how well F3's Campos team fared in Australia, taking six point-scoring finishes.

The experienced lineup of second-year drivers Ollie Goethe, Mari Boya, and Sebastian Montoya is paying dividends for a team that so often dealt only with rookies.

Hadjar's F2 victory made Melbourne a brilliant trip for Campos. Their F3 trio might not have any trophies for their efforts, but they brought their team a hefty haul of points to continue showing they're on the upswing in the support paddock.

Jim's 2024 Ongoing rankings

Zane Maloney made it to the podium again, and the Bajan racer remains top of the F2 standings, but also, more importantly (probably...), my rankings.

Experience shined through in F3, and I feel we'll start seeing the same names on the Feature Race podium when the championship returns to Europe for some familiar tracks for the youngsters.

1. Zane Maloney - F2 (Rodin)

2. Paul Aron - F2 (Hitech)

3. Leonardo Fornaroli - F3 (Trident)

4. Luke Browning - F3 (Hitech)

5. Arvid Lindblad - F3 (PREMA)

6. Kush Maini - F2 (Invicta)

7. Dennis Hauger - F2 (MP Motorsport)

8. Dino Beganovic - F3 (PREMA)

9. Isack Hadjar - F2 (Campos)

10. Gabriele Mini - F3 (PREMA)

Ferrari Formula 1 Daniel Ricciardo Helmut Marko Isack Hadjar Gabriel Bortoleto