Christian Mansell has enjoyed a strong start to the 2024 FIA Formula 3 Championship season, ending the opening weekend in Bahrain with an outright podium.
 
Finishing third on the standings after the opening round, the New South Welshman had a mixed weekend but ultimately goes into the second round in a strong position.
 
Qualifying in a respectable eighth position, Mansell started the reverse-grid formation race in fifth but a slow start off the line saw him lose multiple positions early, before he lost places one by one during the 19-lap affair to finish 15th overall.
 
Mansell’s fortunes changed completely in the feature race as he charged through the field to reach the chequered flag in second place.
 
Starting from eighth, Mansell picked off multiple cars in the opening few laps and moved to third by lap three before completing an impressive move on Sami Meguetounif two laps later.


The Aussie teenager then did his utmost best to chase down leader Luke Browning, but the Brit did a fantastic job in holding him off and Mansell settled for second place.
 
Tommy Smith had a more challenging weekend, finishing both races outside the top 20.
 
Another two Aussies were in action in the Middle East over the weekend, with Matt Campbell and Yasser Shahin getting their FIA World Endurance Championship campaigns underway in Qatar.
 
Kicking off with the Qatar 1812 km, Campbell picked up the better results of the two as the 2024 Bathurst 12 Hour winner helped steer the Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 Hypercar to third outright.
 
Driving alongside Michael Christensen of Denmark and Frenchman Frédéric Makowiecki, the podium proved somewhat of a disappointing result for the trio, as they started the race from the front after Campbell scored the team's first ever WEC pole position.

Unfortunately, after almost 10 hours of racing, they missed out on second place by just one second, while the other Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 of Kévin Estre, André Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor took the win just 30 seconds ahead of them.


Despite finishing two places lower than where they started, it was still a strong effort by Campbell and his teammates, who banked good points for the season opener.
 
Further down the field, Shahin and his two teammates, Richard Lietz and Morris Schuring, crossed the finish line a further 51 laps behind the leaders, limping home to 31st outright and 15th in the LMGT3 class.
 
There were plenty of podiums for Australians in the Formula Winter Series at MotorLand Aragón in Spain over the weekend, with Jack Beeton claiming the overall round win in his series debut.
 
Running in his first round of the four-part series, Beeton enjoyed a thrilling battle with Keanu Al Azhari of the UAE across the three races but ended up just behind in the opening two races, with a second and third in his final results.
 
Beeton then had the chance to win the race after Al Azhari retired early as he led the race, however a mistake in the final stint of the race allowed American James Egozi to take out the victory at the Queenslander’s expense.
 
Beeton’s US Racing teammate and fellow Aussie, Gianmarco Pradel, was the next best performing Aussie, with the 2023 series runner-up rounding out the podium behind Al Azhari and Beeton in the opening race.


Misfortune prevented him from scoring points in the second race of the round, before the teenager bounced back in the final race to finish fourth overall and bag good points.
 
Crossing the line right behind Pradel in the third race was another Aussie in Griffin Peebles, whose fifth place finish was his best result for the round and helped him extend his lead at the top of the standings.
 
Peebles entered the round sharing top spot with Peruvian Andrés Cárdenas, however his final race result and a P10 in the opening race to Cárdenas’s sole race three eighth place was enough to extend the gap out to seven points ahead of the season finale at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this weekend.
 
Rounding out the quartet of Aussies in the series was Peter Bouzinelos, who had a tough run of results, with his only finish being 31st in race one.