Roundup of F3’s only pre-season test in Bahrain ahead of the new 2022 season as Hitech GP’s Isack Hadjar dominated proceedings.
15 hours of testing took place across three days at Bahrain International Circuit, Bahrain, as returning and new drivers all settled into their teams and experimented with different setups ahead of the new campaign.
Now, here is a full roundup of all three days of action as everyone geared up for the opening round in a fortnight’s time.
Day One
A calm start to the opening morning of the pre-season test featuring 15 rookie drivers saw several drivers focused on acclimatising themselves to their new teams and cars, until 2022 F3 Asia champion – Arthur Leclerc went top with 1m 48.005 in the closing stages of the session.
Leclerc consequently finished the morning top from two rookies in Zane Maloney and Reece Ushijima after Carlin’s Enzo Trulli stopped on track with an engine issue, just minutes before the checkered flag was waved to end the session.
Trident’s Roman Stanek caused the first of two red flags in the afternoon session as teams focused on a mixture of qualifying and race pace simulations throughout the period of green flag running.
Maloney eventually topped the afternoon session with the fastest overall time of 1m 47.614 ahead of Jenzer’s William Alatalo by 0.169 seconds.
In fact only nine drivers failed to improve on their best lap time of the morning session with Leclerc finishing seventh overall, having set the best lap time in the morning session out of those who failed to improve after the lunch break.
ART GP’s Juan Manuel Correa meanwhile sat out the first day of running following an inconclusive Coronavirus test, which later returned negative to enable the American to participate in the final two days of the test.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Session |
| 1 | Zane Maloney | Trident | 1m 47.614 | pm |
| 2 | William Alatalo | Jenzer | + 0.169 | pm |
| 3 | Jak Crawford | PREMA | + 0.185 | pm |
| 4 | Roman Stanek | Trident | + 0.240 | pm |
| 5 | Franco Colapinto | VAR | + 0.329 | pm |
| 6 | Victor Martins | ART GP | + 0.378 | pm |
| 7 | Arthur Leclerc | PREMA | + 0.391 | am |
| 8 | Reece Ushijima | VAR | + 0.421 | am |
| 9 | Ollie Bearman | PREMA | + 0.437 | pm |
| 10 | Gregoire Saucy | ART GP | + 0.471 | pm |
| 11 | Isack Hadjar | Hitech GP | + 0.475 | am |
| 12 | Kaylen Frederick | Hitech GP | + 0.514 | am |
| 13 | Alexander Smolyar | MP Motorsport | + 0.530 | am |
| 14 | Francesco Pizzi | Charouz | + 0.544 | pm |
| 15 | Jonny Edgar | Trident | + 0.681 | pm |
| 16 | Pepe Marti | Campos | + 0.918 | pm |
| 17 | Patrik Pasma | Jenzer | + 0.960 | pm |
| 18 | Kush Maini | MP Motorsport | + 1.195 | am |
| 19 | Ido Cohen | Jenzer | + 1.264 | am |
| 20 | Zak O’Sullivan | Carlin | + 1.269 | pm |
| 21 | Ayrton Simmons | Charouz | + 1.305 | pm |
| 22 | Hunter Yeany | Campos | + 1.329 | am |
| 23 | Caio Collet | MP Motorsport | + 1.334 | pm |
| 24 | Enzo Trulli | Carlin | + 1.460 | am |
| 25 | Laszlo Toth | Charouz | + 1.515 | pm |
| 26 | Brad Benavides | Carlin | + 1.598 | pm |
| 27 | Rafael Villagomez | VAR | + 1.603 | am |
| 28 | David Vidales | Campos | + 1.693 | pm |
| 29 | Nazim Azman | Hitech GP | + 2.262 | pm |
Day Two
Drivers were greeted with hot track temperatures on the morning of the second day of testing as Victor Martins quickly set the pace with 1m 47.602, prior to a series of race simulation practice for several drivers which dominated the morning session.
Hitech rookie, Isack Hadjar however struck late to top the morning session with 1m 47.516, which was 0.086s quicker than Martins’ best effort as Jonny Edgar, Gregoire Saucy and the returning Juan Manuel Correa completed the top five in the overall classification.
The afternoon session saw a similar repeat of the morning’s running with a mixture of quick flying laps and race simulations, as Martins finished top at dusk with a slower 1m 48.250 whilst everyone but Trulli failed to improve on their best lap times from the morning session.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Session |
| 1 | Isack Hadjar | Hitech GP | 1m 47.516 | am |
| 2 | Victor Martins | ART GP | + 0.086 | am |
| 3 | Jonny Edgar | Trident | + 0.113 | am |
| 4 | Gregoire Saucy | ART GP | + 0.288 | am |
| 5 | Juan Manuel Correa | ART GP | + 0.318 | am |
| 6 | Zane Maloney | Trident | + 0.388 | am |
| 7 | Alexander Smolyar | MP Motorsport | + 0.389 | am |
| 8 | Zak O’Sullivan | Carlin | + 0.402 | am |
| 9 | Jak Crawford | PREMA | + 0.417 | am |
| 10 | Williams Alatalo | Jenzer | + 0.478 | am |
| 11 | Arthur Leclerc | PREMA | + 0.508 | am |
| 12 | Roman Stanek | Trident | + 0.528 | am |
| 13 | Caio Collet | MP Motorsport | + 0.624 | am |
| 14 | Franco Colapinto | Trident | + 0.749 | am |
| 15 | Ollie Bearman | PREMA | + 0.753 | am |
| 16 | Kaylen Frederick | Hitech GP | + 0.800 | am |
| 17 | Patrik Pasma | Jenzer | + 0.883 | am |
| 18 | Kush Maini | MP Motorsport | + 0.927 | am |
| 19 | Ido Cohen | Jenzer | + 0.989 | am |
| 20 | Hunter Yeany | Campos | + 1.032 | am |
| 21 | Reece Ushijima | VAR | + 1.074 | am |
| 22 | Brad Benavides | Carlin | + 1.291 | am |
| 23 | Ayrton Simmons | Charouz | + 1.399 | am |
| 24 | Pepe Marti | Campos | + 1.463 | am |
| 25 | Nazim Azman | Hitech GP | + 1.504 | am |
| 26 | David Vidales | Campos | + 1.543 | am |
| 27 | Laszlo Toth | Charouz | + 1.548 | am |
| 28 | Rafael Villagomez | VAR | + 1.567 | am |
| 29 | Francesco Pizzi | Charouz | + 2.460 | am |
| 30 | Enzo Trulli | Carlin | + 2.783 | pm |
Day Three
A quiet concluding morning saw Hadjar comfortably dominate the early session as drivers and teams focused on their own individual programmes, with the French-Algerian rookie finishing fastest overall with 1m 47.247 ahead of Jak Crawford and Gregoire Saucy.
Kaylen Frederick caused the only red flag of the morning session as he stopped at Turn Three, yet managed to finish eighth overall as he, Zak O’Sullivan and Roman Stanek rounded out the top ten.
Nobody however made further improvement in the afternoon session as a sand storm swept in which made conditions very difficult for the entire field, with Stanek emerging fastest with 1m 48.182.
Pepe Marti, Laszlo Toth and Saucy meanwhile all caused red flags throughout the afternoon as F3 teams finalised plans for the opening round, which takes place in Bahrain between 18-20 March.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Session |
| 1 | Isack Hadjar | Hitech GP | 1m 47.247 | am |
| 2 | Jak Crawford | PREMA | + 0.381 | am |
| 3 | Gregoire Saucy | ART GP | + 0.472 | am |
| 4 | Caio Collet | MP Motorsport | + 0.535 | am |
| 5 | Alexander Smolyar | MP Motorsport | + 0.662 | am |
| 6 | David Vidales | Campos | + 0.724 | am |
| 7 | Victor Martins | ART GP | + 0.747 | am |
| 8 | Kaylen Frederick | Hitech GP | + 0.758 | am |
| 9 | Zak O’Sullivan | Carlin | + 0.760 | am |
| 10 | Roman Stanek | Trident | + 0.793 | am |
| 11 | Arthur Leclerc | PREMA | + 0.821 | am |
| 12 | William Alatalo | Jenzer | + 0.842 | am |
| 13 | Pepe Marti | Campos | + 0.858 | am |
| 14 | Zane Maloney | Trident | + 0.882 | am |
| 15 | Juan Manuel Correa | ART GP | + 0.908 | am |
| 16 | Kush Maini | MP Motorsport | + 0.937 | am |
| 17 | Ido Cohen | Jenzer | + 0.963 | am |
| 18 | Franco Colapinto | VAR | + 1.079 | am |
| 19 | Reece Ushijima | VAR | + 1.094 | am |
| 20 | Francesco Pizzi | Charouz | + 1.150 | am |
| 21 | Patrik Pasma | Jenzer | + 1.167 | am |
| 22 | Jonny Edgar | Trident | + 1.204 | am |
| 23 | Ollie Bearman | PREMA | + 1.213 | am |
| 24 | Rafael Villagomez | VAR | + 1.248 | am |
| 25 | Nazim Azman | Hitech GP | + 1.299 | am |
| 26 | Hunter Yeany | Campos | + 1.404 | am |
| 27 | Enzo Trulli | Carlin | + 1.417 | am |
| 28 | Ayrton Simmons | Charouz | + 1.492 | am |
| 29 | Brad Benavides | Carlin | + 2.077 | am |
| 30 | Laszlo Toth | Charouz | + 2.200 | am |