Martinius Stenshorne, a promising young driver in McLaren’s junior program in Formula 1, has been suspended for one round in Formula 3 before even competing in a race. The 18-year-old Norwegian, who was a rival of Mercedes’ F1 contender Kimi Antonelli in the regional Formula championship last year, was recently announced as a junior driver for McLaren alongside fellow F3 driver Alex Dunne. Stenshorne and Dunne will make their debut for McLaren at the Imola race this weekend. However, Stenshorne will not be able to participate in the Silverstone round, McLaren’s home turf, due to a serious violation of testing regulations that gave him a sporting advantage. This violation resulted in a four-point penalty on his license.
The reason for Stenshorne’s suspension is his participation in the Silverstone round of the GB3 series. According to regulations, F3 drivers must obtain approval from the FIA and the F3 promoter if they wish to participate in a different championship. They are prohibited from engaging in on-track activities in single-seater cars with a similar power-to-weight ratio as an F3 car without permission. The stewards found that Stenshorne and his team did not seek approval for the GB3 event and the previous test. Stenshorne claimed to be unaware of these requirements, while his F3 team, Hitech, stated they were not aware of his participation in the GB3 round. It is worth noting that Hitech is also involved in GB3, although Stenshorne competed with Chris Dittmann Racing for that particular round.
The stewards emphasized that Stenshorne would have been denied permission to participate in the GB3 round due to the similarities between the GB3 car and the F3 car, as this would give him a significant sporting advantage. Another F3 rookie, Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad, also faced sanctions for an unauthorized exit in GB3. However, Lindblad only participated in the testing session and not the championship round itself. The stewards considered Lindblad’s actions to be an administrative error, resulting in a €20,000 fine, half of which was suspended. Alpine F1 junior Nikola Tsolov, who competed in the Eurocup-3 championship at Spa-Francorchamps, is also under investigation for participating in another championship. Similar to Stenshorne, Tsolov was prohibited from participating in the Spa round and received four penalty points on his license.
