Formula 3 switching to new 16” tyres
This is a very important weekend for the FIA Formula 3 Championship. In fact, Monza is hosting the final round of the season and the Drivers' title has yet to be decided while the Prema Powerteam has already clinched its sixth Teams crown in this series. In the running to succeed 2023 champion, Brazil's Gabriele Bortoleto, are two Italians, Leonardo Fornaroli on 133 points and Gabriele Minì (130) and two British driver Luke Browning (128) and Arvid Lindblad (113). The title fight between them all comes down to tomorrow's last Feature Race,
It's going to be an exciting afternoon at the Monza circuit, just as it was exciting today to see the launch in the paddock of the new car that will be used in this series, as from next year and up to the end of 2027. The design philosophy of this new car was to deliver something that will provide youngsters who aspire to race in Formula 2 and Formula 1, with the best opportunity to make their way up the motor racing ladder.
The 2025 F3 car has a new look in line with that of the cars in the two senior categories, adopting the same level of safety, the same systems and the same performance feel with affordable costs. It complies with the latest FIA safety standards and is powered by a bespoke 6-cylinder 3.4-litre naturally aspirated Mecachrome engine, which delivers 380 horsepower at 8000 rpm.
The new car is planned to run on Aramco's advanced fuel, which is being developed to be compliant with the FIA's 100% sustainable fuel standard in 2025. This fuel, also planned to be used in the F2 Championship, is intended as a step forward in the Formula 1 group's drive to be Net Zero by 2030.
For the new car, Pirelli has designed 16” tyres, thus getting closer to the 18” already used in Formula 1 and Formula 2. Their dimensions go from 250/575-13” at the front and 290/590-13 at the rear, to the 16” ones that have the same diameter front and rear: 250/640-16” and 290/640-16”.
“ This will be Pirelli's first experience of producing 16” tyres for a racing car and, at the design and development stage, we applied the same methodology and the same approach we have brought for some time now to Formula 1,” explained Pirelli's Director of Motorsport, Mario Isola. “ Along with the FIA and the Formula 3 promoter, we have chosen a size that will allow young drivers to begin getting used to tyres that they will encounter as their career develops"
“There was a very short time frame for defining and completing this project. The first steps were taken in the autumn of 2023. Then, this March we moved to the prototype stage and indoor testing in the Research and Development department in the Milan headquarters. Then on 25 June, the new tyres made their track debut at Varano, which marked the start of outdoor testing, alongside work on the Dallara simulator, with four sessions in the dry and one in the wet, which ran until September. A total of around five thousand kilometres were completed on tracks such as Silverstone, Monza, Magny-Cours, Aragon and Vallelunga."
“It's a very intense and compressed development programme and in the coming months, we will finalise the tyre construction and compounds,” continued Isola. “Furthermore I'm pleased to highlight that even these tyres for 2025 have their rubber component certified by the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council,) thus matching the standard adopted as from this year for our tyres used in Formula 1 and Formula 2.”
