Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
“The pace is there, qualifying was my strongest point, especially at the beginning of the season [but] I had a few penalties that didn’t allow me to score as many points as I should have,” says Theophile Nael of his season in FIA Formula 3.
And yet, despite taking three poles and three wins (more of either than any other driver), he only finished fifth in the overall standings, 71 points behind the champion, Ugo Ugochukwu, racing for the same Campos Racing team.
On pure speed, the 19-year-old was a match for anyone on the grid. But as track limit violations at times put him under extra pressure to deliver a single qualifying lap, so some overly robust on-track moves cost him dearly in the races. Formula Scout caught up with Nael to reflect on his season.
On the back of his Macau Grand Prix triumph, Nael looked like the man to beat, at least in terms of pure speed, in the opening rounds of the season. After a strong rookie season in F3 with Van Amersfoort Racing, winning Macau gave his confidence a huge boost as he switched to the category’s top team, Campos Racing.
“I don’t know why, but the victory in Macau helped me a lot in terms of confidence, but more mentally: how to prepare for qualifying and the race, the start and everything. Everything just clicked at some point in Macau and then I was able to replicate it in Melbourne and Monaco, two street circuits, and Barcelona.”
It certainly did click. Three poles in the first three races. He was making the notoriously unpredictable F3 qualifying lottery look anything but.
“My goal was not to be on pole every race weekend. Of course, those three pole positions were super good, but that wasn’t my ultimate goal,” he says.
Macau victory boosted confidence ahead of 2026
Nevertheless, three poles in succession was “impressive,” he readily agrees. “In F3 it’s super difficult to be on pole. You need to have everything in the window: tyre pressure, setup, and the driver as well. All the preparation needs to be perfect. If you are not perfectly in that window, you can miss a bit of performance and pace.
“The first one in Melbourne was very particular because it was my first one and we did only out push, so no warm-up lap, nothing, just putting more pressure in the tyres and going out on track, so that was a very special one,” he remembers.
But that reference to his one-shot qualifying masks another recurring theme of his season – track limits. Having seen his first push lap-time deleted, Nael had no margin for error on his second push lap. But he obviously thrives under the pressure as he nailed his lap to perfection.
Another street circuit, Monaco, brought a second straight pole, almost half-a-second faster than Freddie Slater, second in his group. An “amazing feeling,” he says. “I felt really comfortable there from FP.”
FIA F3 Qualifying pace 2026
| Pos | Driver | Average gap to pole | Median qualifying | Mean qualifying | Outside Top 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freddie Slater | 100.223 | 3.0 | 5.1 | 1 |
| 2 | Ugo Ugochukwu | 100.300 | 4.5 | 6.2 | 1 |
| 3 | Theophile Nael | 100.303* | 8.5 | 9.8 | 3 |
| 4 | Ernesto Rivera | 100.319 | 7.0 | 6.9 | 0 |
| 5 | Tuukka Taponen | 100.358 | 6.0 | 7.4 | 2 |
* Gap excludes Monza (no time set)
And he followed it up at the first of his team’s home races in Barcelona, as he continued his pace from pre-season testing and free practice.
And on Sunday he executed a perfect race to claim his maiden victory. But that was the only one of his pole positions that he converted into a race win, also his only feature race victory all year.
Surprisingly perhaps, for a driver who excelled in single-lap qualifying, two of his three wins came in reverse-grid sprint races, as his qualifying dominance dissolved post-Barcelona.
So, what went wrong for the Frenchman?
Simply put, too many mistakes. Some that cost him directly, some via penalties. Not all his fault, and certainly some misfortune didn’t help his cause but he just couldn’t match the consistency of team-mate Ugochukwu.
And sometimes, he clearly let his emotions get the better of him. Too lost in the moment, while rivals Ugochukwu and Slater seemed always to be able to keep one eye on the bigger picture.
In Melbourne he was penalized for a jump start but would still have salvaged a podium if it had not been for a late safety car which bunched up the field.
He was unable to take advantage of his Monaco pole, as a poor getaway allowed Brando Badoer to slip through into the lead into Ste Devote. Game over.
“The start wasn’t great, but the pace was really, really good. I could have won that race easily if I had kept this position after T1, but anyway, this happened,” he rued.
While on the one hand, it was still a “magic weekend” for Nael, on the other “it was super frustrating to be honest, but I think it made me even stronger for Barcelona the week after.
Photo: theophilenael.com
“When I arrived in Barcelona, I was so angry. I wanted that first victory in F3, and it was good to claim this victory in Barcelona for the team as well. I was F4 champion in Barcelona, so it was special to have my first victory there,” he recalls.
But after the highs of the first three rounds, in which he had scored 52 points, a mix of penalties, mistakes and misfortune saw him gain a meagre 32 in the remaining seven rounds, 21 of which came through his two sprint race wins.
Even his magic touch in qualifying seemed to have deserted him.
Nael is honest enough to admit that after Barcelona “it didn’t quite click. We weren’t able to put everything together and to get the planets aligned.
“After Barcelona, we went to the Red Bull Ring and my qualifying was super bad, so it means that sometimes it’s not working. I know what I need to do, but sometimes it’s not that easy. We are still human and it’s tricky to manage emotions, adrenaline and everything, but that’s why I like this sport, to be honest.”
Significantly, he draws a distinction between circuits and sessions where he could get his head down and drive to the limit, and the strains of being caught in a pack of ambitious F3 drivers.
At tracks like Budapest, Melbourne, Monaco and Barcelona, we can be alone on track, make a clean lap and deliver everything. But at the Red Bull Ring or Monza it’s very difficult to be on pole just with the driving, because we need some tow, we need to be in the right spot, at the back [of the pack] and this is very difficult to manage.”
In Austria, Nael was caught out again by track limits in qualifying. He lost six places when his best lap was deleted but he was struggling anyway, having been caught in traffic trying to find a tow. He would start 24th, leaving him pointless for the first time in 2026.
Similarly at Silverstone he lost his first two flying laps meaning that as he started his final push lap with two minutes remaining, he sat at the bottom of the timesheet. The pressure was on to deliver without making another mistake.
Somehow, he pulled out a lap quick enough for the front row, “a really good achievement.” As in Australia, his track limit infringements made his own life difficult, but when the pressure was really on him, he could deliver a stunning lap.
But he also made unnecessary mistakes in the heat of battle, attracting the attention of the stewards and costing him solid points finishes.
As he told Formula Scout: “Unfortunately, I got some penalties during the season. That was maybe some of them unfair and some of them I learned from it. So yeah, very tough in terms of understanding these penalties and learning from that.”
The most egregious example came in the Hungaroring feature race where he collected two separate penalties for forcing Tuukka Taponen off the road. Not once, but twice. With hindsight he admits that he let his competitive instincts get the better of him, costing him another 10 valuable points.
“In Budapest, I got 15 seconds in total. Maybe I could have avoided this. I was maybe a bit aggressive and I wanted to keep that position. We were fighting for P5, if I remember well, and maybe I should have just let the guy [Taponen] pass and stay P6, but it’s difficult to accept that when we are racing drivers.
But that wasn’t his only brush with officialdom.
He got hit by a five-place grid penalty for both races at Spa-Francorchamps for “driving too slowly” in qualifying, dropping him from third to eighth on the grid for the sprint race. He was far from the only miscreant but got a tougher penalty for being the lead car on the track, such that “his actions affected all following cars.”
While that needless indiscretion arguably cost him points, a 10-second penalty at Silverstone for running wide at Stowe trying to fend off Louis Sharp mid-race almost certainly lost him a win. He crossed the line in second behind Matteo de Palo in a thrilling finish, but his penalty dropped him out of the points. De Palo was later disqualified…
“I overtook Sharp and I should have given back the position, but everything went superfast and then he lost position. This was a bit difficult to accept, but after removing this action, maybe I should have let him pass again very fast, and then looking at my pace, I could have overtaken him later on, but it is how it is unfortunately.”
Nael acknowledges the debt to his Campos Racing team, which has once again shown itself to be the class of the field, not only by claiming both titles, but also by putting all three drivers into the top five.
The team’s expertise and work ethic has impressed Nael.
“To be honest, I was surprised by the way that they are working. The engineers are working a lot together, they know each other very well. I think they are able to learn how the driver is working, how he likes the car. They adapt the setup to him, and I think that’s really impressive.
“To be honest, I’ve never seen that so far in my young career. So, I think that’s why they are performing very well. And they work superhard every day at the workshop. to just keep improving. Looking into details that I would never expect like tyre energy in a specific corner, on a specific lap. Everything is about details.”
And all three drivers were “pushing each other in terms of data. In this team, we are able to share everything, so it’s good because if Ugo or Ernesto [Rivera] were doing something better than me, I could learn from it and the other way as well. That’s very helpful as a driver because we are in F3 to learn and to become a professional driver in the future. I think it’s the right approach to have and I think that’s another reason why the team is doing so well.”
Nael’s Barcelona weekend was close to perfect
Photo: theophilenael.com
“If we remove all the penalties this season, I would have been much higher in the standings,” he admits, before drawing the balance that while “that’s a good sign, at the same time, also a bit frustrating.
“The pace has been there throughout the whole season. There have been some disappointing race weekends from my side, but overall I am extremely happy. Three pole positions in a row at the beginning of the season was spot on. Then we had some issues in some races and some penalties that I could have avoided.”
He concedes that “as a driver, you can feel that [confidence], but then it’s very difficult to be consistent the whole season and to replicate that for the whole season.” And that lack of consistency was ultimately his weakness, compared to his team-mates Ugochukwu and Rivera, as well as Slater.
As in the classic board game, while there were plenty of ladders to move up, there were also too many snakes to send him sliding back down.
Emotions are a powerful force but need to be harnessed. He obviously thrives under the pressure of tight street circuits and can pull out a lap when all is on the line. But he would clearly prosper if he didn’t need to rely on a single push lap due to earlier errors.
There are therefore obvious lessons to be learned, if, as he surely deserves, he moves up to Formula 2 for 2027.
“Now it’s on my side to calm down a bit, let’s say, and to avoid penalties and stupid actions to score more points during weekends,” he admits.