Two Formula 3 drivers have been banned from upcoming rounds of the championship for taking part in other series without permission.
McLaren junior Martinius Stenshorne has been banned from the Silverstone round and Alpine’s Nikola Tsolov will not be allowed to race at Spa. The pair were found to have raced at the tracks during April without obtaining prior permission from the FIA.
Stenshorne took part in the Silverstone round of the GB3 championship for Chris Dittmann Racing, where he finished ninth and 14th in the two races.
Tsolov only participated in one race in the Eurocup-3 event at Spa and retired following a collision with a rival. The second race was cancelled before its scheduled start time due to adverse weather conditions at the Belgian circuit.
Both drivers said they were unaware the Formula 3 sporting regulations forbids them from competing in series which used similar cars without prior permission. The rule broken by the pair states no driver “may carry out any type of activity on any track with any type of single seater car that was designed and/or built to achieve a power-to-weight ratio less than 2.0kg/bhp.”
Stenshorne said his GB3 appearance was organised by his management team. Tsolov said he had planned to participate in three further Eurocup-3 races.
The stewards ruled both committed “a serious breach of the testing regulations with a potential sporting advantage gain for the driver” and therefore decided to ban each for the forthcoming Formula 3 rounds at the respective tracks they raced at. Both were also given four penalty points on their licence, coincidentally moving both onto a total of six.
A third driver, Red Bull junior Arvid Landblad, was fined €10,000, with a further fine of the same amount suspended until the end of the season, for participating in a two-day GB3 test at Silverstone. The stewards accepted his explanation that a miscommunication occurred between his management team and race team over the test.
“The stewards determined that this was an administrative error by the competitor and driver who failed to inform the FIA and the promoter about the single-seater activity as requested by article 10.4 of the Sporting Regulations,” they noted.
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Formula 3
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