F3: Wurz leaning on experience for home race weekend in Austria

Written by Morgan Holiday

Credit: Formula 3

Every racing driver lucky enough to have a home race looks forward to it each year.

For Trident Racing driver Charlie Wurz, that weekend has come as Formula 3 heads to Austria to race at the Red Bull Ring.

“I’m feeling good,” Wurz said about his home race ahead of the weekend. “I’m happy to be back after a bit of a break. This track is maybe not the easiest for me, but with a good car and with the good feeling I have with the team I think we can do a good job.

“It's always tight so you have to put it together here, but that's part of the fun of motorsport. I'm really invested in this weekend and with overtaking opportunities for the races where we have been quite good, it will be an interesting weekend for sure.”

Challenges of a home race

While drivers can have added pressure to perform at their home track, Wurz doesn’t see this weekend as any more of a challenge than any other race weekend.

“For me I don’t consider it a challenge,” he told the media ahead of the weekend. “I think it’s an opportunity to finally get some good food racing at home, happy to have that.

“It’s a track that on paper looks easy but it’s always very tight in qualifying, like Barcelona in a way. So it will be interesting in qualifying, again you have to maximise what you can do because a tenth will cost you a lot of positions.

“It’s a track that I like, the weather’s great, let’s see about tonight but for the rest it looks sunny. Having more fans here is a pleasure for me and I’m just enjoying the weekend and focusing on doing my job. I don’t think there’s any additional pressure, just another race weekend, and I’m looking forward to getting to it.”

Experience "only positive" for Wurz despite previous woes

Credit: Formula 3

19 year-old Wurz is in the middle of his second season competing in F3. Last year he raced with Jenzer Motorsport and finished 22nd in the championship - scoring ten points with one top five finish. He finished just one point below his only other full-time teammate Max Esterton.

Despite the fact that Wurz finished 20th and 27th in both races at the Red Bull Ring last year in F3, he’s had success at this track before. In 2023 he had three top five finishes at the track in the Euroformula Open Championship, and he scored points there two years in a row during his stint in Italian F4.

Still, going back to track that you haven’t succeeded at in the past in F3 can be a challenge both physically and mentally. But for Wurz, his lacklustre F3 record at the Red Bull Ring can still be a positive.

“I have a great car and a great team this year,” Wurz told DIVEBOMB ahead of the weekend. “We worked really hard on the sim, since January I’ve been preparing the Red Bull Ring as well as all the other tracks. I know it very well, and I know the job we can do together so I think I’m not worried about last year. 

“I just think of it as more experience, I know more about the track than some of the rookies, in the F3 car especially, so I think I can only take it positively that I was able to drive here last year and learn from that and use that this year to my advantage.”

F3 takes to the Red Bull Ring track for qualifying at 9:00am local time in Austria, where Wurz will be hoping to make a splash with Trident at his home Grand Prix weekend.