"Amazing!" was Stefan's verdict on the famous Monza circuit. "You can really feel the history all around." And in the first of the two F3 races there he was able to make a bit of personal history with his first podium finish in the series.

Stefan's weekend started badly, though, with an engine blow-out on Friday that cut short his first practice session and ruled him out of most of the second. Then qualifying for the first race was cancelled because of rain, leaving one session to decide the grid for both races. Starting positions for race one would be set according to the drivers' best lap times and for race two by their second best. More rain on Saturday led to a chaotic session with much corner-cutting, a number of penalties and a local guest driver taking one of the two pole positions. Stefan qualified fifth and sixth respectively for the two races (24th overall in both).

Race one, also on Saturday, began on a dry track but there were a number of collisions early on. Stefan stayed out of trouble and was running second in class when frontrunner Andy Meyrick spun out on lap 7, handing Stefan the lead. Rain began falling again with five laps still to go and a short while later the battery warning light came on in Stefan's cockpit. Unable to keep up maximum pace, he was caught and passed by Hywel Lloyd two laps from the end - but he then held on to claim second place and his first Formula 3 podium finish.

On Sunday, race two began with all the cars on slick tyres, but the rain soon returned and the increasingly slippery track caught out a number of drivers. Stefan made a very good start but went off the track in the ensuing chaos. Fortunately, he got back on the black stuff with no damage to his car, though having lost places. Soon afterwards he made a pitstop to change to wet tyres, but he was then forced to retire with a broken driveshaft.

It was a disappointing end to a mixed weekend, but Stefan was very encouraged by the pace that he and the team had found in the car - even if they hadn't been able to show it at Monza. He left Italy hopeful of better things the following weekend at Rockingham.