Photo: Red Bull
Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov won from pole in FIA Formula 3’s Monaco sprint race with a faultless drive.
Tsolov had a gap of over seven seconds to Rodin Motorsport’s Roman Bilinski by the finish despite two safety car periods.
Bilinski was attacked for second at the start by Campos’s Mari Boya, but managed to hold him off and stay with Tsolov. But within a few laps, Tsolov had a lead of over two seconds.
The gap continued to widen until he was over seven seconds ahead when the first safety car period began after Prema’s Noel Leon struck trouble.
Tsolov was not the only driver with space behind him. MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz had a seven-second gap to sixth-placed Charlie Wurz. While the safety car was out, Wurz told his Trident team the car felt wrong as he had front wing damage and a puncture. Before he pit, the restart took place.
Wurz did two more laps, and caused a train of drivers behind him. He soon lost control of the car, colliding with the barriers. At the same time, contact between AIX Racing’s Nicola Mariangeli and Prema’s Brando Badoer put the latter out of the race and the safety car returned. Mariangeli was handed a 10s penalty.
Racing resumed with four laps remaining. Tsolov immediately broke away and built a huge margin for his second win of 2025.
Throughout the race, Boya had company from Rodin’s Callum Voisin. Late on Voisin clipped the wall while challenging for third, but managed to keep going without losing a position. Boya did not put a wheel wrong and finished just 0.671s ahead of Voisin.
Trident’s points leader Rafael Camara had a quiet race. After starting outside the top 10, he made little progress early on. When the safety car came out for a second time, he had made it to ninth but then lost a rear wheel. It hit Joshua Dufek’s car, but the Hitech GP driver did not appear to suffer any damage. Camara made it back to the pits to retire.
After Wurz’s retirement, ART Grand Prix driver Laurens van Hoepen was put back onto the tail of Tramntiz but could not find a way past him and finished seventh.
AIX’s James Hedley missed the race due to a hand injury picked up in the sprint race.
Race results (27 laps)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikola Tsolov | Campos Racing | 42m16.874s |
| 2 | Roman Bilinski | Rodin Motorsport | +7.243s |
| 3 | Mari Boya | Campos Racing | +7.737s |
| 4 | Callum Voisin | Rodin Motorsport | +8.408s |
| 5 | Tim Tramnitz | MP Motorsport | +8.728s |
| 6 | Laurens van Hoepen | ART Grand Prix | +9.416s |
| 7 | Tuukka Taponen | ART Grand Prix | +12.970s |
| 8 | Martinius Stenshorne | Hitech GP | +13.720s |
| 9 | Louis Sharp | Rodin Motorsport | +14.312s |
| 10 | Alessandro Giusti | MP Motorsport | +14.854s |
| 11 | James Wharton | ART Grand Prix | +15.382s |
| 12 | Joshua Dufek | Hitech GP | +26.205s |
| 13 | Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak | Campos Racing | +27.105s |
| 14 | Noah Stromsted | Trident | +27.299s |
| 15 | Christian Ho | DAMS | +27.713s |
| 16 | Ugo Ugochuckwu | Prema | +28.660s |
| 17 | Matias Zagazeta | DAMS | +29.513s |
| 18 | Santiago Ramos | Van Amersfoort Racing | +35.250s |
| 19 | Gerrard Xie | Hitech GP | +37.971s |
| 20 | Ivan Domingues | Van Amersfoort Racing | +40.745s |
| 21 | Nicola Marinangeli | AIX Racing | +44.300s |
| 22 | Theophile Nael | Van Amersfoort Racing | +1 lap |
| Ret | Rafael Camara | Trident | |
| Ret | Bruno del Pino | MP Motorsport | |
| Ret | Charlie Wurz | Trident | |
| Ret | Brando Badoer | Prema | |
| Ret | Brad Benavides | AIX Racing | |
| Ret | Noel Leon | Prema | |
| Ret | Niko Lacorte | DAMS | |
| DNS | James Hedley | AIX Racing | |
| Fastest lap: Tsolov, 1m24.886s
Championship standings |
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