Rafael Câmara may have lost his streak of feature race wins at Imola, but he walked away with a healthy 21-point lead after three rounds of the 2025 FIA Formula 3 Championship. Feeder Series reviews the main takeaways from the first of three consecutive race weekends.

By Daniele Spadi and Tori Turner

Having topped practice on Friday morning, Câmara took his third pole position of the season in qualifying, but he was unable to convert it into another win come Sunday. Santiago Ramos instead claimed his first feature race win and second victory of the season, with Strømsted and Câmara joining him on the podium. The previous day, Tim Tramnitz took home his first win of the 2025 F3 season in the sprint ahead of rookie Bruno Del Pino, who secured his first podium, and Nikola Tsolov.

• Pre-weekend roundtable: How F3 drivers are preparing for three back-to-back European rounds
• Qualifying report and quotes: F3 points leader Câmara ‘was not expecting to start the season’ with three poles in a row 
• Sprint race report and quotes: Tramnitz and Del Pino take MP’s maiden 1-2 finish in F3 in Imola sprint
• Feature race report: Ramos defeats Câmara for second F3 win of 2025 in Imola feature

1. Tramnitz and Strømsted gain crucial championship points

Championship leader Câmara failed to score points in the sprint for the third race in a row, giving his closest title rivals the opportunity to close the gap – albeit by only a few points. 

Trident’s Noah Strømsted scored the most out of the 30 drivers in Imola. He added 25 points to his growing total, narrowing his deficit to Câmara from 29 to 21 points. The Danish driver qualified third on Friday, just 0.244 seconds behind teammate Câmara, who achieved his third pole position of the season.

In Saturday’s sprint race, Strømsted pushed through the pack and rose from 10th on the reversed grid to sixth. But it was in Sunday’s feature race that he gained the most points. Despite dropping to fifth on the opening lap, he made his way past Louis Sharp on lap six and began to challenge for the podium. After passing Tuukka Taponen on lap 10, Strømsted overtook Câmara on lap 19 after the Brazilian made a critical mistake at Acque Minerali. 

With Câmara finishing 11th on Saturday, the Mercedes junior outscored his teammate for two races in a row. He also took both fastest laps.

Tim Tramnitz, who was second in the championship standings with 30 points heading into Imola, utilised Saturday’s reverse-grid format to make up ground. Lining up second for the sprint, the German initially battled teammate Bruno Del Pino before snatching first away from him on lap three. The Red Bull junior then warded off the threat of two safety car restarts to secure his first victory of the 2025 season. 

In the post-sprint press conference, Tramnitz said he was targeting a top-five finish during Sunday’s feature from 11th on the grid. Though he ultimately finished sixth, just 1.174s shy of Mari Boya, his 18-point haul ensured he left Imola third in the standings with 48 points – keeping pace with Câmara.

2. Ramos and Imola: a perfect match made 

Imola has played a crucial role throughout Santiago Ramos’ career ever since he began in single-seaters. The Mexican made his single-seater debut at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari back in 2019, when he partook in round five of the Italian F4 season with DR Formula by RP Motorsport. Though he did not finish higher than 22nd place in any of those three races, he did finish ninth when he came back to the venue one year later with Jenzer Motorsport.

After he graduated to FRegional Europe, his strong feeling with the Italian circuit continued. In his second season in 2023, he qualified an impressive fourth for the opening race of the season, though a technical issue forced him to start from the pit lane. Nonetheless, he scored his first points in the championship the following day by climbing from 14th to sixth during race two.

Ramos’ one-lap pace around Imola has always been impressive, and that didn’t change once he stepped up to F3 in 2024. In only his third race weekend in the series, he claimed pole position around the Italian track, heading a historic Trident 1-2-3 in qualifying. He proceeded to end both races in the top 10, though he slipped down to eighth in the feature race.

In 2025, Ramos was once again on the front row on Sunday. This time, he had to settle for second in qualifying after Rafael Câmara claimed his third consecutive pole in the session’s dying moments. Following a disappointing sprint race in which he broke his front wing in a last-lap collision with Brando Badoer and came home 27th, he had his best chance yet at taking his first feature race victory.

The Mexican driver stole the lead from Câmara at the start of the feature race. The Brazilian took it back on lap four, but Ramos then stayed with the championship leader as the two pulled ahead of the pack by more than four seconds at the halfway point.

Ramos was then able to take advantage of Câmara’s worn tyres to overtake the Brazilian on lap 19. From that point onwards, the Mexican never looked back, claiming his second win of the season with a commanding drive and showing once again how strong his affinity with Imola is.

3. Taponen keeps ART afloat

After a trying 2023, ART Grand Prix returned to their usual F3 form by finishing third in the teams’ standings. Their 2025 line-up was expected to be one of the most competitive in the series thanks to Laurens van Hoepen’s experience and the raw pace that both James Wharton and Tuukka Taponen showed in FR Europe last year. But after the first three rounds of the season, the team have only managed to score 37 points and currently sit sixth in the standings.

Of those 37 points, 36 have been scored by Taponen, who has been ART’s beacon of hope throughout the opening phase of the championship. After a disappointing race weekend at Albert Park, where the entire team failed to score points, the Finn has been one of the most consistent drivers on the grid, with a worst result of seventh throughout the last four races. Following a stellar performance in Bahrain that saw the ART driver finish both races inside the top four, he enjoyed another great weekend in Imola, a track that he now knows well from racing there in both Italian F4 and FR Europe.

On Friday, the Finn qualified a strong fourth, less than a tenth off the front row of the grid. In the sprint race, he gained two places and finished in seventh, while on Sunday, he kept his starting position and brought home fourth for the second consecutive feature race.

With such solid races, the Ferrari academy driver has taken on a leading role inside the team, as fellow Ferrari junior Câmara has done at Trident. Though the Brazilian has one more year of experience in single-seater racing and the upper hand in the standings, Taponen is showing great promise in F3 too. Their battle within the Italian team’s ranks could prove pivotal for the Prancing Horse’s future plans.

Results and standings after round 3 at Imola

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Rafael Câmara, 1:32.206	Santiago Ramos, +0.236s	Noah Strømsted, +0.244s
Sprint race (18 laps)	Tim Tramnitz, 33:26.398	Bruno Del Pino, +0.782s	Nikola Tsolov, +1.187s
Feature race (22 laps)	Santiago Ramos, 35:28.558	Noah Strømsted, +0.277s	Rafael Câmara, +6.838s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Rafael Câmara, 73	Trident, 135
P2	Noah Strømsted, 52	MP Motorsport, 76
P3	Tim Tramnitz, 48	Campos Racing, 60
P4	Tuukka Taponen, 36	Van Amersfoort Racing, 54
P5	Santiago Ramos, 35	Rodin Motorsport, 54
P6	Nikola Tsolov, 33	ART Grand Prix, 37
P7	Callum Voisin, 27	AIX Racing, 27
P8	Roman Bilinski, 20	Hitech, 20
P9	Martinius Stenshorne, 20	DAMS, 10
P10	Théophile Naël, 19	Prema Racing, 7

Read our takeaways from the previous round here.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency