Johnathan Hoggard enjoyed his best qualifying performance of the season in the FIA Formula 3 Championship and followed up with his joint-best race result as the season came to a close at Sochi Autodrom in Russia over the weekend.
With the championship organisers making a late change to the schedule, opting to race closer to Europe than the planned finale in the United States, there was little time to prepare for the weekend.
The 20-year-old from Weston Hills used the single practice session to learn the track and where best to position his car.
Heading into qualifying he drove superbly in his Travel Planet-backed Jenzer Motorsport machine, finishing third quickest a mere 0.039s from the car ahead, only 0.173s from pole position, and 18 places higher than his closest team-mate.
For the opening race of the weekend, which was brought forward at late notice owing to the poor weather forecast for Saturday, Hoggard lined up tenth on the grid, with the top 12 qualifiers reversed, but he slipped back a few places during the early stages of the 20-lap contest.
Fighting back to 12th place he then decided to hold position knowing it would give him a pole position for race two, where the top 12 finishers are reversed.
However, he didn’t get to start from the head of the field as the second race was eventually cancelled due to the amount of rain which had been falling at the venue, leaving him just one final contest, where he’d start from his third-place qualifying position.
Getting a good start, Hoggard held third position. But, driving with awareness and maturity, he realised the drivers behind him were much faster and, not wanting to risk a non-finish, decided not to fight too strenuously to hold his position.
Knowing a strong finish was better than ending off track, he eventually came home sixth and equalling his performance at Spa-Francorchamps in August.
Joining the FIA Formula 3 Championship after the first rounds in France and having missed the pre-season test, the BRDC SuperStar performed well despite having raced at just one of the five remaining venues the series raced on.
His results improved week on week and, after his first weekend in the car, outperformed both of his team-mates, the main benchmark a racer can have.
Hoggard will now enjoy some time at home with his family before preparing himself for the 2022 racing season, where he again will be one to watch.
The South Holland speedster said: “It was a good weekend, practice was what it was. It was about learning the track and then we went into qualifying just trying to focus on improving with the new tyres.
“It was an amazing qualifying session to do so well and to get P3 in the end because it wasn’t even that far away from P1.
“At the start of the first race I had a couple of mistakes which cost me some places but then I got back to 12th.
“I knew about the reverse grid for race two, so I didn’t really want to make up or lose any places. I managed it accordingly and finished 12th but it was a shame that race two was cancelled as I was meant to be on pole.
“It was dry for the F2 race on Saturday, but it was frustrating because we sat there waiting to go and never ended up racing. I think what made it worse was I was going to start on pole.
“I started third for the final race of the season.
“I got a good start and first couple of laps, but I could see that the drivers behind me were quicker, so I didn’t really want to fight and lose time because we had a bit of a gap. I let them pass and tried to minimise how much time I was losing being overtaken, because I was struggling quite a bit with the pace.
“The season has gone really quickly, to be honest and it’s a bit of a shame that it’s finished so early.
“I think it has been a good experience with the team and learning everything. It was quite nice to visit to all the tracks that I haven’t been to before and race in Europe for the first time.
“I have to say a big thank you to Travel Planet and Jenzer Motorsport for the incredible opportunity, to the BRDC for their guidance through the SuperStar programme, and Motorsport UK for helping me as part of Team UK. I really appreciate everyone’s support.”
