Is there another Verstappen in F3?

Last year the Formula 3 European Championship enjoyed an explosion of interest from the wider motorsport world, thanks to two incredible rookies.

First, the performances of Max Verstappen - straight from karting, just 16 years old at the start of the season, and the son of a Dutch cult hero - fully justified the hype around him.

In turn, the limelight around the precocious Belgo-Dutch firebrand was refracted upon the superb Esteban Ocon, straight from Formula Renault yet on top of the standings almost from the start of the season, not to mention seasoned F3 racers Tom Blomqvist, Lucas Auer and Macau Grand Prix winner Felix Rosenqvist.

Can such momentum for the championship be maintained this season? If not, it won't be because of any lack of star quality among the successors to Ocon and Verstappen. In McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award winner George Russell and Nicolas Todt-managed Charles Leclerc, F3 has two newcomers of outstanding ability, and both of them scored a race win first time out at Silverstone.

There are other talented rookies in the championship who have the ability to win at some point, and there are also returning frontrunners, most notably Rosenqvist, the other victor at Silverstone.

It's always hard to draw too many definitive conclusions from an opening round at which three different drivers won and from which a fourth - Antonio Giovinazzi - emerged atop the championship table, but there are some handy clues.

RUSSELL IS A NEW STAR...

If anything, Russell's maiden season in cars last year, with a dual programme in BRDC Formula 4 and Formula Renault ALPS, was not quite as remarkable as his late-2013 tests straight from karting had led us to expect. He took a last-gasp F4 title that early-season form suggested he'd walk, and he usually trailed Leclerc and Nyck de Vries in ALPS.

But then a flourish in October brought him F4 laurels thanks to a brave and timely manoeuvre on Raoul Hyman in the Snetterton season finale, and a 'wildcard' entry for the Formula Renault Eurocup finale at Jerez netted an eye-opening victory on his maiden outing with the French Tech 1 Racing team. Subsequent excellent F3 tests meant he was a man in demand for 2015.

Trevor Carlin, whose team secured the 17-year-old Brit despite the temptation of a Mercedes-backed deal with Mucke Motorsport, is convinced that Russell's mid-season illness hid his light under a bushel.

During an exhausting run of races, the Norfolk prodigy was forced to miss an ALPS round at Monza due to chicken pox, something that hits the adult body considerably harder than it does when it strikes at the usual primary-school age. The constant round of travelling and racing must have made it harder to shake off, and the recovered 'autumn Russell' we saw - F4 champion, FR Eurocup race winner, F3 star tester, McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC winner - was much more representative.

It hasn't all been plain sailing this year - Russell stacked his intended race chassis during a shakedown test at Pembrey, damaging the tub and forcing a switch to the ex-Dany Kvyat machine - but he showed his class during two races at Silverstone.

First, a performance of impeccable racecraft that lifted him into the points after an early collision with Leclerc; secondly, an exquisite drive under relentless Leclerc pressure for his maiden F3 win.

...AND SO IS LECLERC

Monegasque Leclerc has well and truly stepped into Verstappen's shoes, driving the same Van Amersfoort Racing chassis taken to 10 wins last year, and with the same engineer in the form of Rik Vernooij.

His performance in the pre-event Silverstone test was extraordinary - of 10 successive flying laps (with a pitstop in the middle), six of them were quicker than anyone else's best, topped by a time that put him fastest by a full half-second, and he looked dynamite through the Becketts complex.

But Leclerc refused to get carried away, knowing that testing can be misleading in F3. Both VAR and Carlin run Volkswagen engines, and like Mercedes (whose top teams are Prema Powerteam and Mucke) they have three settings. It's well-recognised that Mercedes runs more conservatively on the lower two settings than VW, so plenty of glances over the shoulder were being cast, most notably in the direction of Prema star signing Rosenqvist.

Sure enough, first qualifying brought Rosenqvist to the fore. Leclerc didn't find a clear track, having to pass team-mate Alessio Lorandi, and then catching Mikkel Jensen by the end of an effort that stood at his best, with the tyres - unusually - at their peak for just one lap in this session.

Interestingly, Leclerc joined Rosenqvist and Jake Dennis in being the only frontrunners to nail their fastest lap on their second flier (after one warm-up) with the tyres at their absolute best. But the newcomer's traffic-strewn bid left him down in fifth, behind Russell, whose own time came on his fourth flying lap.

Leclerc showed his pace by going three tenths clear of Russell in the second session, and he therefore inherited two poles after the post-qualifying exclusion of Rosenqvist. He converted only one of them to a win, under pressure throughout from Giovinazzi, but this was a victory almost as impressive as Russell's - one slip mid-race prevents it being a perfect 10.

ROSENQVIST'S OMINOUS PACE

From the performance of the two star rookies, can we expect them to progress further and give Rosenqvist and Giovinazzi (who doesn't count Silverstone as one of his better tracks) an even harder time? Well, possibly, but let's consider how much Rosenqvist may have left in his tank...

The Swede's exclusion from second qualifying sent him to the back of the gargantuan 35-car grid for races two and three. The illegality wasn't performance-enhancing, except in the consequence of his deciding to use all four of his remaining fresh Hankook tyres in the first race. This was an unsatisfying stop-start race that didn't really answer any questions and during which Rosenqvist only had to master the succession of restarts.

The second race, which ran more or less unsullied by cautions apart from an early midfield clash, gave us a very significant clue.

Rosenqvist had to pick his way through an enormous midfield battle, from which he emerged in seventh place on lap 11 of 18, with a 10-second gap to Alexander Albon in sixth. On lap 15 he rattled in a 1m51.675s - not only was this just 0.005s slower than Leclerc's fastest lap set on lap nine, but it was seven tenths faster than race leader Russell was going at the time, and four tenths quicker than Russell had been lapping at the point just before Leclerc fell away with his tyres shot.

After this lap, Rosenqvist's gap to Albon was still 8.5s, and he dropped the pace with no chance of advancing.

Factor in the fact that he was on four tyres that had all done several laps in qualifying, while Russell and Leclerc ran two new, and the Prema man's pace looks all the more impressive.

THE FIGHT TO JOIN THE FRONT

At the point Rosenqvist set that laptime, rookie team-mate Lance Stroll was the next quickest man on track. Ferrari's Canadian protege had never driven an F3 car at Silverstone before Tuesday's test, although he'd done a general test there in Prema's old Formula Master car. As Italian Formula 4 champion he's also making a bigger step up than the Renault graduates, but looks promising, especially when he discovers how to match the early-race pace of Russell and Leclerc.

Another Prema Euro F3 newcomer, Brandon Maisano, was good enough to beat Raffaele Marciello to the 2010 European Formula Abarth title. (After this he did two years in Italian F3, so he's not eligible for European series' rookie title.) He had no experience of Silverstone at all before the test day but, driving the ex-Ocon machine, looked roughly on a par with Stroll over the weekend.

Meanwhile, Albon and fellow Lotus F1 Junior Dorian Boccolacci were both making their F3 debuts with Signature. Renault Eurocup graduate Albon was extremely impressive on his way to three top-six finishes, while Boccolacci has made the huge leap from French F4, but was good enough to set a theoretical top-10 best on sector times in the opening qualifying session.

There's more to come from Ilott © LAT

Signature, whose chief engineer Brice Gaillardon made a pre-season switch back to his former team Carlin, seemed to be struggling during the Tuesday test, but the likeable Albon reported a great leap forward on set-up in time for the race weekend. It could just be that the returning French team rejoins the F3 elite.

Alongside Russell and Giovinazzi at Carlin, karting graduate Callum Ilott has the pressure of being a member of the Red Bull Junior team, and was on a circuit whose long sweeps make it probably the hardest for a driver who's relatively fresh to aero and downforce. A brace of top-10 finishes - plus top-six race pace - was impressive, but he expressed disappointment at that in his post-race PR.

In the wake of Verstappen, it appears that a lot of drivers need to manage expectations and stay calm while working towards the ultimate goal - he, after all, is a once-in-a-generation talent.

So, heading into next week's second round at Hockenheim, there'll be a lot of engineers and coaches doing the tricky job of encouraging their charges, while trying not to boost expectations beyond realistic levels.

There are plenty who look to have the ability to shine; just glance at all the rookies who showed little glimpses of top-10 form at Silverstone: Ilott's fellow karting graduate Alessio Lorandi (in his first car-race weekend with VAR), Lorandi's team-mate Arjun Maini, Mucke duo Maxi Gunther (in the ex-Rosenqvist chassis) and Mikkel Jensen, West-Tec pair Raoul Hyman and Fabian Schiller, Carlin man Ryan Tveter, Fortec's Pietro Fittipaldi and EuroInternational man Nicolas Beer...

By the same token, they're also in a tight cluster where one little error costing, say, two tenths, could lose you 12 places on the grid - and a lot of confidence.

SO WHO'S GOT THE EDGE?

What can we expect for Hockenheim? For my money, of the rookies it was Leclerc who had a slight edge in qualifying at Silverstone, with Russell perhaps just ahead in races (save for the third, where he struggled to turn on his tyres).

But both may find it tough to beat Rosenqvist and Giovinazzi, the Prema man because we got a hint at Silverstone of how mightily impressive his race pace is, the Jagonya Ayam protege because he - and his Carlin team - are always very strong on the Baden-Wurttemberg circuit.

Then you have to factor in some of the non-rookies: Dennis, with his Formula Renault NEC background, is also historically much better at Hockenheim than at Silverstone. It's uncertain yet whether the Racing Steps-backed Brit has banished his qualifying woes of 2014; he was a strong third in the first session at Silverstone, but reported brake issues in the second, thus clouding the issue.

The form of Marvin Kirchhofer with EuroInternational will also be interesting - he missed Silverstone's race weekend due to a clashing GP3 test but his pace in the Tuesday test was encouraging.

But, by my reckoning, everyone's going to struggle to beat Rosenqvist - just look at his Silverstone speed, and the fact that he's already won six F3 races at Hockenheim.