Coming off a up-and-down Formula 3 debut season, Laurens van Hoepen is excited to start his 2025 F3 campaign for ART Grand Prix, partnering with Tuukka Taponen and James Wharton.
Capitalise on starting positions and pace
Last season Van Hoepen had a strong start to the 2024 season, scoring three podiums in the first four weekends. The results didn’t come so easily after that and the final result was 13th in the championship standings.
Talking to several media, including Pit Debrief, the Dutchman explained he and his team need to capitalise on their opportunities in 2025.
“We were always one of the quickest cars on track,” he explained. “It’s just that last year we didn’t really capitalise on good starting positions and just did the pace that we had in general.
“So I think for this year, just be when you are in a position to score big points, you really need to score those points and be really consistent.
“So that’s definitely where we’re trying to work on and I think that we can improve on.”
New generation of cars
Van Hoepen’s debut season was also the last season of the previous generation of the F3 cars, meaning the second-year driver had to adjust to the new car for the 2025 F3 season. He was, however, pleasantly surprised by the handling of the car.
“So yeah, the new car is obviously a big thing. In handling, I think it’s actually way better than I expected.
“I didn’t have very high expectations, I have to say. But yeah, I was really surprised with how good the car was handling in definitely high speed mostly. So I was really happy with that.
Van Hoepen did however feel the new car required him to change his preparation for the 2025 F3 season.
“I think it definitely changes your preparation for a season, because it’s just a bit different and you just have to get used to everything a bit differently.
” So you can’t really say, ‘oh yeah, last year we did this, so now we can do it exactly the same,’ because the car is different.
“So you have to change your approach as well, which of course doesn’t help when you’re like a second year driver. But still, I think I’m very confident in the prep we’ve done. And yeah, I feel very, very confident going into the season as well.”
