F3 Cars Used To Run A Side Pod Air Intake, Here's Why It Worked And Then Disappeared

Before Formula 3 cars became sleek, smaller, and slower clones of the sustainable F1 cars, there was a time when they looked like tiny fighter jets (although they're not shooting missiles). They had big, awkward-looking pods sitting just behind the driver's shoulder, looking like something out of "Twisted Metal". You've probably seen them yourself in photos of '80s or early 2000s F3 cars.

Those pods weren't mistakes. They were air intakes, purpose-built for the era of restricted engines. The first F3 to introduce these wide side pods was Argo's JM3 in 1979. By the mid '80s, Dallara made an improved F385 engine with an improved side pod design, making them a staple in F3 history. 

See, F3 engines were capped by air restrictors to limit power, so engineers had to make every molecule of air count. They cooked up clever side pod designs with air restrictors 20 mm in diameter, helping maintain steady pressure without choking the engine. But by 2013, new 2.0L engines would have 26 to 28 mm air restrictors thanks to new regulations, anticipating an increase in power output. F1 cars used top snorkels as they went from V12s to turbocharged V6 engines, but F3 lived under stricter rules. The oval side pod was a workaround, acting as an aerodynamic loophole disguised as a duct. It looks ballistic, but it worked –- and in F3, that was enough.

If you scroll through old Formula 3 photos, those oval side pod air intakes look like relics from a time when "aero" mostly meant "make it sleek enough to look fast." They're far from the most ridiculous aerodynamics in motorsport, but the air intakes were still big, obvious, and — let's be honest — kind of cool. But regulation and efficiency eventually strangled them out of existence.

The turning point came in 2012, when Dallara introduced the F312 chassis for British F3. It wasn't just a facelift; it was a complete rethink to meet stricter FIA side-impact and airflow rules. Dallara's engineering and project head Jos Claes explained the update as an effort to modernize aerodynamics and safety, reshaping the side pods to meet crash structure requirements while cleaning up drag. The oval intakes simply didn't fit the new math and needed to be reduced.

By the time the FIA Formula 3 Championship's 2019 Dallara F3 car rolled out, the transformation was complete. Gone were the oval pods and in came the top-fed snorkel, which looked similar to what you see on the F1 series. It was also stated in the 2019 FIA F3 Technical Regulation that no parts can be visible above the car.  It wasn't nostalgia-friendly, but it was fast, compliant, and brutally efficient. The oval intakes didn't just go out of style. They were engineered into extinction. And so, like many brilliant-but-weird ideas in racing, those side pods faded quietly into history.