Louis Sharp endured a frustrating but ultimately fruitful weekend at a rain-lashed Silverstone, with two top-five finishes maintaining the young New Zealander’s position at the head of the 2024 GB3 Championship points table after the opening two rounds.
The 16-year-old star arrived at the home of the British Grand Prix in confident form, having impressed mightily on his GB3 debut at Oulton Park, where he marked his card as a championship contender with a maiden win and two further top-five finishes to lead the championship after the first of eight rounds.
Since then, the 2023 British Formula 4 Champion was fastest in official testing at Brands Hatch and again in Friday’s Free Practice in the immediate build-up to Silverstone’s showdowns.
Those two table-topping times counted for little when Saturday morning dawned cold and wet for the critical 20-minute qualification session that dictated all-important grid positions for the weekend’s races.
A sub-optimal chassis and tyre setup in the tricky conditions resulted in Sharp only qualifying his Rodin Motorsport run racer in fifth and seventh for the two opening races on the famous F1 circuit – respectable by many standards but below his own high expectations.
Knowing just how tricky overtaking is with such evenly-matched cars, Sharp then refocused his mindset on bagging as many points as he could from his grid positions.
In Saturday afternoon’s opening showdown—now on a drier track—the New Zealander made up one place on the opening lap to finish fourth. With his closest rivals in the current standings behind him, he extended his championship lead.
The weather on Sunday morning was even wetter and chillier than 24 hours earlier, forcing GB3 organisers to postpone the day’s final reverse grid race and reschedule the morning’s planned second race to the afternoon. By then, the skies had lifted, though the track was still damp and slippery, requiring wet, treaded tyres.
Once again, Sharp battled his way up the order as the pack jostled for positions on the opening lap, this time making up not one but two places before the order settled down. Thereafter, the Kiwi managed his tyres on a drying track, and despite chasing the top four and finishing well clear of the driver in sixth, he settled on banking more good points.
It takes consistency as well as speed to win championships, and Sharp is now the only GB3 driver to have finished all five races held to date in the top five.
“After the issues we had in qualifying when we expected it to be even wetter than it was, I feel we maximised what was possible over the weekend,” said Sharp.
“Having qualified lower than I should have done, it made the races quite tough. I moved forward both times, though, but with the limited overtaking opportunities in these cars, it was tricky to do much more. We do still have the championship lead, so it’s been a decent weekend with solid points, although it’s not quite where I wanted to be.”
With one eye firmly on the future, the next three GB3 rounds are staged on renowned Grand Prix tracks in Europe. They will visit Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, the Hungaroring in Hungary, and Zandvoort in Holland before a return to a hopefully warmer and drier Silverstone at the end of July. Two further rounds in the UK at Donington Park and Brands Hatch will bring the season to what should be a thrilling finale.
