Ugochukwu leads first FIA F3 practice of 2026 in Melbourne

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Ugo Ugochukwu set the pace in practice ahead of the first round of the 2026 FIA Formula 3 championship.

The Campos Racing driver was 0.427 seconds quicker than Brando Badoer, while the next five drivers were all separated by less than a tenth of a second.

Practice was brought to an end five minutes early after flames appeared from the back of Mattia Colnaghi’s car and he came to a stop on track.

The majority of the session ran relatively incident free. A few drivers suffered lock-ups and trips over the grass, including Patrick Heuzenroeder, who is deputising for the injured Ernesto Rivera in Melbourne, but all were able to continue without problems. 

Louis Sharp set the pace after the opening laps, but times quickly tumbled as the session progressed. Brad Benavides, Alessandro Giusti and Noah Stromsted each briefly held the top spot in quick succession, before Ugochukwu took first place.

Ugochukwu’s time of 1m34.859s was the first under 1m35s. He then improved, lowering the benchmark to 1m34.607s. Nobody else was able to break the 1m35s mark, putting Ugochukwu clear ahead of the rest of the field.

Badoer took second quickest after a late improvement, ahead of Stromsted, Theophile Nael and Giusti.

There was just over six minutes left on the clock when Colnaghi crossed the start-finish line for the final time. Flames appeared from the back of his car and, while they quickly disappeared, smoke continued to trail from the back of the MP Motorsport run machine. Colnaghi was able to pull over and came to a stop on the side of the track, but the red flag was thrown to clear the incident. 

With only five minutes remaining at this point, the session did not resume and nobody was able to topple Ugochukwu’s time.

Benavides finished just outside the top five in P6, ahead of Pedro Clerot and Nicola Lacorte. Christian Ho and Sharp completed the top 10.

Free practice results