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James Wharton made his F3 debut last weekend at Silverstone and FormulaNerds spoke to him about his weekend with Hitech Pulse-Eight.
For the 2024 Formula 3 season, Hitech Pulse-Eight, an established feeder series team, consisted of three drivers: Luke Browning, Martinius Stenshorne and Cian Shields. However, for Round 7 of the season, Stenshorne was suspended. This followed his participation in “another Championship without prior approval from the Promoter or the FIA in writing.”
As a result, James Wharton joined Hitech for the weekend. Wharton currently races in the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine with PREMA Racing. However, for the British Grand Prix weekend, he joined Hitech as their third driver.
Last weekend was Wharton’s first time racing an F3 car, having only joined FRECA at the beginning of this year. Over the Silverstone weekend, FormulaNerds caught up with Wharton about his F3 debut, which wasn’t an ideal weekend following a postponed Sprint Race and mixed weather conditions.
‘There was no expectation’
FormulaNerds asked Wharton how he felt about stepping up to F3 for the weekend. In response, Wharton admitted that he was “super happy” to be in the championship and that there were no expectations for him. He said:
“It’s been up and down because there was no expectation coming into today but then I had a really good FP.
“It felt really nice in the car in the rain. Then in qualifying, there was such changing positions, so basically I got a two-two-push to learn the car, which is really difficult. On my last push, I was first to cross the line as the track was improving, so I just got completely unlucky tonight with the way I was on track because I think if we were finishing a lap later we would’ve been a lot further up.
“But overall I’m super happy to be here. I should be a lot of happier because I’m in F3 today but of course, as a racing driver I want to be further up.”
What a weekend with so much action!
We even got in the points for a while, it was quite an experience ?Special thanks to @HitechGP and @All_Road. Hopefully we’ll be back soon. #JW13 #F3 #BritishGP #Silverstone #HitechGP #JW13 #BritishGP #F3 pic.twitter.com/m7xyA31R3z
— James Wharton (@Jameswharton_) July 7, 2024
Thoughts on his performance
In the F3 Qualifying at Silverstone, Wharton set a lap time that put his car P27, four positions behind Hitech teammate, Shields. In the postponed Sprint Race, Wharton finished P18. He had originally crossed the line in 13th, but he was given a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision with Tommy Smith. On the Sunday, Wharton finished P21 in the Feature Race.
We spoke to Wharton after his performance in the Sprint Race, where he said: “Obviously, it got postponed a long time so a little bit of anticipation before the first race, but I feel like I did a solid job.
“After lap one, I made a little mistake but I fought back quite well and the pace was quite good for the first ever long run I’ve done so I think I can be quite happy with myself. But I’m going to try and do a little bit better tomorrow.”
Joining a new environment
In FRECA for this season, Wharton is racing with PREMA. However, for his F3 debut, the Australian driver joined Hitech Pulse-Eight.
Over the weekend, FormulaNerds spoke to Wharton about what it was like joining a new team, a new environment. Speaking to us, Wharton admitted that it was “hard” but he felt “comfortable” in the British outfit very quickly. The young driver said:
“It’s hard to slide into a gap in the middle of the season, especially when you don’t know the team. But overall it’s been quite comfortable.
“We worked a lot before this weekend, so really comfortable already in the team, which is super important. But I really have to change my mind back to Mugello on Sunday night because Mugello is next weekend and still the priority for this year so I have to try and change my mind.”
Wharton returned to racing in FRECA this weekend with Stenshorne returning to F3 for next weekend, Round 8 of the season at the Hungaroring.
Headline Image: X @jameswharton_