Photo: Escuderia Telmex
Santiago Ramos executed FIA Formula 3’s feature race at Imola exactly to plan, taking victory after pressuring Rafael Camara into overworking his tyres.
Camara had pole, but Ramos overtook him at the race’s first corner. The lead returned to Camara on lap four, and Ramos allowed him to control the pace up front while he looked after his tyres to be better placed for attacking late on.
It “went as planned” as he got back in front with three laps to go, and Camara finished a distant third. Ramos felt “pretty happy” with his victory, which he said was redemption for 2024 when he finished eighth from pole in Imola’s feature race.
“I knew since [the sprint race] that I had everything to play for today,” the Van Amersfoort Racing driver told Formula Scout.
“I knew that I could have a really good start. I could try to challenge [Camara] for first in the first corner. That’s what I did. After that, I saw he was pushing too much to try to gain the position back, so I let him by like I was not fighting for the position. And after that, I was just managing to stay within DRS [range].”
Ramos’s in-car reaction to Camara leading was “if you want to go first, you can go first”, and “knew that I had good pace” so never doubted he would be able to retaliate later on.
“The DRS was a big help trying to cool down the tyres. I didn’t have to put so much in the corners to stay close to him, so I knew he was using his tyres more to try to [push] me out of the DRS range. It was a bit of mental games. I knew more or less that this was going to happen. At the end it worked out exactly as I had anticipated.”
Ramos overtook Camara on lap 19 of 22, as the points leader’s pace had worsened considerably. He was then even asked to let Trident team-mate Noah Stromsted past.
Stromsted, who took 10 laps to return to third after losing two places on lap one, finished 0.277 seconds behind Ramos.
“What could have happened [if Stromsted had not lost places] was a DRS train between Camara, me and Noah,” the winner reckoned.
“For sure he would have the same tyre degradation as us because we were running quite fast since the beginning. We escaped from the group, so we used more tyres in the beginning. He used them more at the end. So I think it’s just a matter of positioning.
“He was coming really fast. I think if I had managed a bit better with Camara, maybe try to pass him a few laps earlier, I could have ran away better. But I wanted to make it the safe way and try to pass him in the last three or four laps to make sure that he will not come back and that I would not have any degradation.”