Jake Dennis's Carlin European F3 programme to stop after Pau

Dennis, whose major programme this season is in the Blancpain GT Series with the WRT Audi team, took a best result of second in last weekend's opening F3 round at Silverstone and helped propel Carlin into an early F3 teams' championship lead.

Team boss Trevor Carlin told Autosport that Dennis will remain on board for next week's Monza round and the May event at Pau, where the Briton won twice with Prema Powerteam in 2015.

"The first three rounds is the plan," said Carlin.

"He's a stabilising influence really - you've got someone who's been there and done it, and if there's a massive problem Jake will be able to tell us straight away.

"I don't want to jinx anything, but the fact that we were strong in Pau last year [where Carlin won the Grand Prix race with Alessio Lorandi] and Jake is the master of Pau, we'd like to think we'll be in with a great chance."

Carlin added that from the June Hungaroring round onwards he would like to run a new driver alongside season-long team members Lando Norris (who won at Silverstone), Jehan Daruvala and Ferdinand Habsburg.

He said this could be someone racing in F3 only or a driver looking to add an extra programme to an existing race schedule.

MOTOPARK FOURTH SEAT STILL VACANT

Motopark chief Timo Rumpfkeil says his team is unlikely to fill its fourth and final seat before the end-of-season Euro F3 rounds.

Taking a swipe at the teams that have big investors behind them and have offered heavily discounted drives, Rumpfkeil told Autosport: "My business case is a very romantic one: the drivers pay some bills and go racing - I think I'm the last one in the paddock [to do that]."

Motopark driver Joel Eriksson leads the championship after the opening round.