He faced stiff competition from his more experienced rivals throughout, but Louis Sharp sealed the 2024 GB3 Championship in convincing style with more poles, victories and laps led than anybody else. Remaining with Rodin Motorsport for his graduation from a title-winning British Formula 4 campaign, Sharp made the perfect start by winning from pole in the Oulton Park season-opener to gain an early points lead.
The British-born New Zealander had to wait a while to stand on the podium’s top step again, however, and a non-finish during round three at Spa in the season’s first event abroad resulted in him relinquishing his place at the head of the standings.
Tymek Kucharczyk led Hitech GP’s early charge after switching from Douglas Motorsport for his sophomore campaign, though a stunning first-lap rise from sixth to third in race two at Oulton was undermined by an optimistic lunge on Sharp that put him out in the closing stages. The popular Pole bounced back by taking a maiden victory at Silverstone and reeled off two more triumphs during a dominant weekend at Spa to grab the championship lead.
Kucharczyk’s team-mate Will Macintyre also made a strong start to his rookie GB3 campaign by taking a victory at each of the first three rounds to set up the possibility of a rematch of his British F4 title battle with Sharp.
The points lead changed hands twice more during the category’s first ever trek to the Hungaroring. Gerrard Xie scored his first success in the opening contest to give Hitech its seventh win on the bounce, and that run looked set to continue with the Silverstone-based outfit locking out the top three grid spots for the sequel.
But the momentum swung dramatically in that second contest. Sharp produced one of the drives of the year by climbing from fifth to first on lap one before taking his second victory ahead of Kucharczyk, who was subsequently disqualified due to a technical infringement, with runner-up Macintyre briefly becoming the third driver to head the standings.
Sharp regained the ascendancy in the title race during that weekend’s final contest, only to lose it once more at the following Zandvoort event after being taken out of race two in a collision with fellow championship contender John Bennett.
“We started off the year well at Oulton,” Sharp recalls. “Over the European leg we didn’t maximise everything. Obviously we still won a race in Hungary, but the other two rounds were not quite as good as what we wanted them to be.”
Despite scoring his fourth victory to reclaim the points advantage, Kucharczyk’s hopes then went off the rails in the final three rounds as the series returned to home soil. An off-form weekend during the second visit to Silverstone was compounded by a race-ending collision with McKenzy Cresswell, another error followed at Donington Park, and he eventually ended up third in the standings.
"The last few rounds were really good. The form late on in the season is really what got us the championship"
Louis Sharp
“We’ve been really quick for most of the season but just some unlucky moments at times with some non-finishes and disqualifications didn’t help,” Kucharczyk relates. “The raw speed was good enough to fight for the championship, but at this level the margins between drivers are so little that every small mistake can cost you.”
Macintyre’s title hopes also tailed off in the second half of the season, where he struggled for pace and scored just one further podium. In contrast, Bennett’s challenge ignited in the final four rounds, having moved to JHR Developments for his third GB3 assault following a largely difficult 2023 campaign.
He made a strong start at Oulton, where he swept past Sharp to score his first single-seater win in race two, and was best of the rest behind Kucharczyk at Spa, but inconsistency and incidents left him well behind his main rivals in the first half of the year. That all changed with a win at Zandvoort, despite his chances of doing the double ending amid his clash with Sharp.
Bennett did not have to wait long to add his third victory, however, after prevailing in a thrilling three-wide lead tussle with Sharp and Cresswell during round six at Silverstone to close to within four points of Sharp, who headed to the final two rounds leading the way for a third time.
But Sharp extinguished any realistic hope of a close title battle in the final stretch by producing his strongest performance at Donington Park, taking two poles and a double victory. That gave him a commanding 33-point advantage heading to the Brands Hatch decider, where he delivered his fifth win of the year in race two before cruising to the crown in the partially-reversed-grid finale to become the first back-to-back British F4 and GB3 champion.
“The last few rounds were really good,” reflects Sharp, who will continue with Rodin in FIA F3 next year. “The form late on in the season is really what got us the championship. It’s been tough, just as hard as what it was in F4 last year. There were some points in the season where it was looking like it was going to be a challenge. It definitely wasn’t easy, but I’m so happy to get the job done again.”
Bennett had to settle for runner-up in the standings despite another strong showing at the final round, and his performances have boosted his hopes of joining Sharp in F3 next year.
“We came in to win the championship, there were a few mistakes along the way, but vice-champion in GB3 is something to be proud of,” says Bennett. “A lot of people counted me out after last year’s results, so to bounce back and fight for a championship, get wins and podiums, it means a lot and it’s really helped secure my future going forwards.”
Like Bennett, Cresswell returned for a third campaign with the sole aim of fighting for the title. Despite the added benefit of continuity by remaining with Elite Motorsport, he struggled in the first half of the season with just three podiums. He finally hit form with his first victory in 12 months at Silverstone, but it was not enough to keep himself in title contention, though a further win at Brands Hatch ensured he leapfrogged Macintyre into fourth in the standings.
Jarrod Waberski made the podium three times and finished sixth overall after moving to Elite for his second season, but he lacked the outright pace to fight for victories. Xie arguably deserved to finish higher than seventh in the final reckoning, with several reliability issues blighting a campaign where he was mostly on the pace of his Hitech team-mates.
After suffering mechanical gremlins of his own while leading race three at Oulton Park, Rodin’s Arthur Rogeon made amends by winning three of the last five partially-reversed-grid races. The other two of those contests were won by VRD by Arden’s Nikita Johnson, who will be aiming to add more victories next year after confirming he will be back for a full campaign with Hitech.
The three-year spell for the successful MSV-022 chassis came to an end in 2024, with a much faster MSV GB3-025 to be introduced next season and, with the addition of Monza to the calendar, the championship looks set to grow further in 2025.
Autosport’s top five GB3 drivers of 2024
5. Mckenzy Cresswell
Another aiming to win the title at the third attempt, but struggled for the same consistency as he showed in 2023 and was also hampered by incidents, though reminded everyone how fast he can be on his day during the final four meetings to sneak into fourth in the points.
4. Will Macintyre
Despite the early-season victories, Macintyre couldn’t quite reproduce his title-contending form from British F4 on stepping up to GB3. Regularly shone in races, but qualifying struggles left him on the back foot far too often, and his challenge unravelled in the later rounds.
3. John Bennett
Fighting for the title in his third season was a must following a difficult 2023 campaign and, although he ultimately missed out on the crown, did enough to revitalise his single-seater career with multiple poles, wins and fastest laps, and tied Kucharczyk for the highest podium haul.
2. Tymek Kucharczyk
Made a huge step forward in his sophomore campaign and at times looked the quickest driver, producing an early run of three straight poles and scoring the most fastest laps with nine across the year. But mistakes and a slight drop off in form late on proved costly in the end.
1. Louis Sharp
The champion produced his best form on British soil, where he scored four of his five victories, but brilliant Hungary triumph and solid results elsewhere during the European leg were still important. Also made no major errors, the two non-finishes across 2024 arguably not of his making.
Granfors grabs the GB4 glory
Fortec driver Linus Granfors prevailed in a three-way fight with Alisha Palmowski and Harry Burgoyne to win the GB4 title. The 17-year-old Swede displayed some eye-catching pace during his sole day of pre-season testing, but he struggled to get to grips with Oulton Park’s twisty layout at the opening round. Despite that, he still recorded his maiden victory in that weekend’s final race, impressively recovering from last place after being spun around on lap one.
“It was a bit difficult in the beginning with all the new tracks,” Granfors reveals. “Oulton was brand new to me. When I got hit in the rear on the first lap and was still able to win, I started to realise that we actually had some pretty good pace.”
Granfors went on a four-race winning streak from there before a tricky event followed at Snetterton, where he failed to make the podium and retired in a final-lap clash in race three. Two more wins across the next two rounds put his season back on track and he sealed the title with a race to spare at Brands Hatch.
"When I got hit in the rear on the first lap and was still able to win, I started to realise that we actually had some pretty good pace"
Linus Granfors
“It’s really great to have another single-seater title,” he says on winning the first championship outside of his homeland. “We had the pace through the whole season and I tried to be as consistent as possible.”
Ginetta Junior graduate Palmowski also starred in her first single-seater campaign for Elite Motorsport, winning on debut at Oulton, taking a double pole and two more victories at Snetterton and accumulating the most podium finishes. Some bad luck with incidents and reliability issues hampered her bid to win the title but, by finishing runner-up and also receiving a €30,000 career contribution for being the top female racer, the future looks bright for the 18-year-old.
Making the switch to KMR Sport for his second GB4 season, Burgoyne’s title challenge was built around consistency, with his maiden win only arriving at the penultimate round. Despite taking another triumph during the deciding weekend, the Scot was pipped to second in the standings in the final race.
Two other drivers also took victories for KMR, which clinched its third straight teams’ title. GB4 scholarship winner Brandon McCaughan won twice early on before running out of budget, while Formula 1 Esports champion Lucas Blakeley starred with four wins across four rounds, showing he would have been a serious title contender had he contested the whole year.
