Stanek tops FIA F3 Free Practice for Trident

Trident‘s Roman Stanek topped the times in Free Practice in the FIA Formula 3 Championship‘s first-ever visit to the Bahrain International Circuit.

The Czech driver enters his third season of F3 in 2022, and his best lap of 1:48.012 edged out ART Grand Prix‘s Gregoire Saucy by just two hundredths of a second.

BWT Alpine F1 Team junior Caio Collet went fastest in the early exchanges before the times tumbled in the circuit’s first running of the day.

Franco Colapinto competed in the LMP2 class of the Asian Le Mans Series and European Le Mans Series, and at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2021, but steps back into single-seater racing with Van Amersfoort Racing this year and showed his hand to move ahead of Collet as the track developed.

No drivers were able to move into the 1:47s, but Stanek moved to the top of the times towards the end of the session, going a hundredth away from breaking the 1:48s barrier.

Arthur Leclerc found the pace in his Prema Racing car as the session went on, moving up the order as team-mates Jak Crawford and Oliver Bearman got to grips with a new team and a new car respectively.

Isack Hadjar reprised his impressive pace from testing to finish the session fourth, surpassing Colapinto late on.

FIA Formula 3 Free Practice – Bahrain International Circuit