Camara’s FIA F3 points lead grows with Barcelona feature race win

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Rafael Camara extended his FIA Formula 3 Championship lead with his third victory of 2025 in the Barcelona feature race.

The Trident driver made a great start from pole and held a 0.6-second lead over ART Grand Prix’s Laurens van Hoepen early on. While the gap was small, DRS was not available at this point so he did not come under threat in the lead.

Racing was then neutralised on lap four after AIX Racing’s Jose Garfias and Rodin Motorsport’s Roman Bilinski had a collision at turn four.

The field returned to racing speeds on lap eight of 25, and Camara instantly put 0.9s between himself and van Hoepen. Now with the assistance of DRS, van Hoepen got the gap back down to 0.6s by the start of lap 13 but then could not get any closer.

The safety car returned on lap 18 due to DAMS’ Niko Lacorte and Prema’s Brando Badoer making contact at the back of the field, with Badoer spinning off into the gravel at turn one, and on the lap 21 restart Van Amersfoort Racing’s Theophile Nael went around the outside of van Hoepen for second place.

Camara did an even better job of gapping himself this time, immediately escaping DRS range and finishing two seconds clear.

MP Motorsport’s Alessandro Giusti came from sixth to complete the podium, but did not start to make progress until ART GP’s Tuukka Taponen fell down the order from fifth on lap nine with a car issue.

He used DRS to pass Hitech GP’s Martinius Stenshorne down the pit straight on lap 11, and did the same to van Hoepen on the final lap.

Camara’s main title rival Nikola Tsolov started alongside him on the front row, but dropped to eighth after being slow off the line. He reclaimed one spot from VAR’s Ivan Domingues on the restart lap, and used DRS to pass Stenshorne on lap 17.

On the final lap Stenshorne lost out to MP’s Tim Tramnitz and Trident’s Noah Stromsted, consigning him to ninth, and Campos’s Mari Boya missed out on scoring in 10th due to a 10s penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

ART GP’s James Wharton should have profited, but he had a five-second penalty so Rodin’s Callum Voisin finished 10th.

Race results (25 laps)