Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Ernesto Rivera certainly made his mark on this year’s FIA Formula 3 championship – and if anything, two wins and seventh in the championship standings sell his performances short.
He came into the F3 season as one of three Red Bull-backed rookies but significantly the only one without a championship title to his name. And his year could not have started in a worse fashion when an accident while racing in New Zealand over the winter left him sidelined for almost four months.
Instead of losing heart, he turned adversity into an accomplished rookie season thanks to his mental fortitude, hard work and a consistently high level of performance, ending the season as arguably the most highly-rated member of the Red Bull Junior Team; the next on the junior category taxi rank once Nikola Tsolov moves up.
Formula Scout talked to the 17-year-old Mexican about the turnaround in his fortunes and his outstanding year.
“The season has been great,” he says. “If you had told me before the season that these would have been the results, I would have signed for it.
“Obviously, there’s a bunch of parts that we could have improved, but as a rookie I think I’ve made good steps over the season every race weekend, improving, having two wins, so I’m super happy with the season I’ve had.”
In fact, Rivera says that he has exceeded even his own expectations for the season. “I thought I could do well, but not as well as I’ve done honestly. I didn’t have such high expectations, but I think I made a lot of progress. I’ve tried to work really hard and improve everywhere.”
When he was forced to miss the pre-season tests and then opening F3 round in Melbourne, Ernesto Rivera could have been forgiven for fearing the worst.
“Obviously, it hurt to not start the season and to miss pre-season and to go through the rehab process. I lost a lot of muscle, a lot of conditioning, so I didn’t start the season in the right steps.”
But Rivera refused to buckle or to feel sorry for himself. What’s happened, happened. Let’s get on with it.
“I didn’t panic too much because of not missing the first race or start thinking that I was going to be at a disadvantage. I didn’t really think about that. I just wanted to start the season as best as possible.
“My mentality was just to accept that I already missed the first round and to try to do as best as possible from Monaco onwards, and I think that has been going really well,” he adds matter-of-factly.
Indeed, it has. Rivera returned to his Campos Racing cockpit for the in-season test at the Red Bull Ring at the end of May before being thrown into his F3 debut two weeks later at Monaco, of all places. And what an entrance he made – seventh in free practice, fifth on the grid and in his first F3 feature race.
Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
“I didn’t really have any expectations for Monaco as it was my first street circuit. Some other guys had raced in Macau or other street circuits, but it was my first time.
“I tried to prepare as well as possible and from the first laps in free practice, I started feeling really good, started to gain confidence and in qualifying I was able to qualify fifth [and actually set the fourth-fastest time in the split session, 0.081s quicker than team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu]. I missed out on third by five-thousandths thanks to a little mistake, but it was not bad for the first time.”
His qualifying record is outstanding. He may not have quite matched the single lap peaks of Freddie Slater or Theophile Nael, but nobody else came close to his level of consistency.
Rivera was the only F3 driver never to qualify outside the top 12, vital where the sprint race reverses the grid order for the first dozen drivers. His gap to the pole time was never higher than 0.49% – the next best was Freddie Slater with 0.62%.
“In qualifying, I’ve always been there. I’ve always been in the top ten,” he says. “Only at the Red Bull Ring I finished 11th, but I was on a good lap and got impeded, but in every other race I have been there in qualifying, close to them.
“But the biggest improvement for me has been in the races. I think I’ve made a good step with tyre management,” he says, referring to every rookie’s toughest lesson on graduating to F3.
“We could see at Spa and at Silverstone that I was coming back to the field and had a bit more than them towards the end. That’s something I’ve learned a lot this season and will help me in the rest of my career.”
His drive in the Spa-Francorchamps feature race was a masterclass of managing tyres, traffic and slipstreaming. He dropped back a place to fifth at the start but calmly bided his time before picking off those ahead and passing Slater for the lead three laps from home.
“I think that [Spa was the highlight]. I’ve never been so emotional in a car before as when I crossed the line,” he remembers.
“After halfway, I was feeling really good, and I decided to push a bit more and try to get by them, and they started dropping, and I could stay the same, and with the DRS effect being so much, it was quite easy to pass when you have a pace advantage.
“It was a mega race and the car was very good, but I was screaming in my helmet. I was so happy and those are the moments that you want to keep having and that’s what keeps me going to get that feeling again.”
Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Another strong weekend in Hungary saw him arrive at Monza for the penultimate weekend in fourth place, just three points behind team-mate Nael. Unfortunately, Rivera’s momentum slowed slightly in Italy and at the finale in Madrid, scoring just 15 points across five races.
However, he had done enough to cement his reputation. He was rarely, if ever, off the pace. He scored points in all but five races, sprints and feature races, from Monaco onwards, a figure matched only by Ugochukwu and Slater.
Of course, being in F3’s dominant team didn’t hinder his campaign. For Rivera, Campos Racing is “family. I’ve been all my formula career with Campos and they have always treated me so well and made me feel so comfortable. I think that familiar environment is what makes the team so good.”
Ugo and Theophile are both for sure among the best drivers on the F3 grid. I’ve learned so much from them. Although their driving styles are very different I’ve learned a lot from both of them. And I think from F4 and Eurocup they are, for sure, the quickest teammates I’ve ever had and the ones I’ve learned the most from.
His plans for 2027, or rather Red Bull’s plans for him, have not yet been announced. The man himself is relaxed though: “I don’t really know what’s going to happen; if I’m going to be F3 or F2 or something, I don’t really know.”
If he does return to F3, he will start as one of the championship favourites.