Autosport Plus

Rating the prospects of the 2020 F3 title contenders

With the title race finely poised ahead of the final triple-header, a category returnee who raced George Russell in his F3 days lends Autosport his thoughts on the ones to watch

Ben Barnicoat has had a very unusual year. The 23-year-old McLaren GT factory driver should have already made his debut in the Le Mans 24 Hours with Carlin, having earned an automatic entry for finishing second in the Asian Le Mans Series over the winter.

He also should have carried on the momentum from a strong showing in the Bathurst 12 Hours - placing second in a 59Racing McLaren - in the remainder of the Intercontinental GT Challenge and added programmes in the European Le Mans Series (also with Carlin) and the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup for 2 Seas Motorsport.

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Author James Newbold

James Newbold is Autosport's Plus Editor, responsible for coordinating website feature content.

In a sign of things to come, having completed his Politics and International Relations degree at the University of East Anglia in 2015, he left his graduation ceremony early to catch the last train to Brussels for the following day's Spa 24 Hours.

After a period as a freelancer, he joined the Autosport staff in 2018 and won the Motorsport UK young journalist of the year award. He initially edited Autosport magazine's Performance and Engineering supplements before joining the website team in his current role in 2020.

A keen enthusiast of anything that can be categorised unusual or niche, he enjoys unearthing little-known stories across all branches of motorsport, but has spent most of his career covering sportscars and is a regular part of the Le Mans 24 Hours reporting team.

He lives with his wife and children in Plymouth, England.