In arguably the most important qualifying session of the entire Formula 3 season, Campos’ Nikola Tsolov claimed pole position for Sunday’s feature race around the streets of Monaco ahead of Roman Bilinski and teammate Mari Boya. Feeder Series spoke to the overall top three after qualifying on Friday.

By Daniele Spadi

In his two previous trips to the historic Circuit de Monaco, Tsolov had been competitive. He had just missed out on points in the feature race in his rookie season in 2023 and took a commanding maiden F3 victory in last year’s sprint.

This time around, he became the first driver to dethrone championship leader Rafael Câmara in an F3 qualifying session in 2025.

Under the series’ special qualifying format for Monaco, drivers were divided into two groups, with the Campos driver placed in group A for even-numbered cars. Having already topped free practice on Thursday by 0.219 seconds, Tsolov was among the quickest right from the get-go on Friday, trading first place with Prema’s Noel Léon and AIX’s Brad Benavides throughout the early stages.

The first session ran smoothly, with the only significant yellow flag coming when Louis Sharp missed his braking point at Sainte Dévote at the session’s halfway point and had to turn his car around in the escape road.

Drivers kept improving lap after lap as their confidence grew and track’s grip level rose. bringing forth new contenders emerged in the final stages. After León usurped Tsolov with two minutes remaining, the second Campos of Mari Boya topped the standings as well ahead of the final flying laps.

But with just 12 seconds remaining, Tsolov improved once again to a monstrous 1:24.882 on his last attempt, putting him more than half a second clear of the rest of the field. Boya then closed the gap to 0.127s on his last lap, with León setting for third, 0.504s behind Tsolov.

“I’ve always felt comfortable around the track, even in my first year,” Tsolov told Feeder Series after his qualifying effort. “I just didn’t put it together. I think it’s the fact that it’s really difficult and it requires a lot of focus. I think this [track] really gets me in the zone. I don’t have to think during my lap. I just drive, which I think is the key for me and it’s what makes me go quick.”

The Campos pair were five-tenths quicker than the rest of the field in an impressive display of dominance. Boya himself enjoyed one of his best F3 rounds in the Principality last year too, claiming two top-seven finishes in the races.

“I think we can be really proud as a team together with all the engineers and mechanics,” Boya told Feeder Series. “It was just a matter of time because we were working really hard and just the results in qualifying were not coming – but now we can be happy.

“The only thing Campos were complaining about is that we were in the same group, Nikola and me, because I think that actually, we could be one and two.”

Charlie Wurz was fourth fastest, while Tuukka Taponen kept his consistency going to finish fifth. Martinius Stenshorne crucially claimed sixth, guaranteeing himself a front-row start for the sprint race. The big loser was Noah Strømsted, currently second in the standings, who only managed to set the eighth-fastest time in Group A.

Group B swiftly followed suit, and championship leader Rafael Câmara went quickest in the early stages with a 1:25.635 while seeking a record-breaking fourth consecutive pole position. Tim Tramnitz was initially right behind him before Callum Voisin jumped to 0.123s behind.

The second session was much more eventful than the first one, especially for three FRegional Europe graduates. Similarly to Sharp, Ugo Ugochukwu had to flick his car around in the escape road of Sainte Dévote, while Nicola Lacorte was shown the black flag with less than four minutes to go and stripped of his lap times for receiving outside assistance when he spun at the same corner five minutes into the session.

Seconds after Lacrote was black-flagged, Prema’s Brando Badoer crashed into the barrier at Turn 1 after losing the rear end of his car at the exit the corner. The incident brought out the first and only red flag of qualifying and put everyone in group B at a disadvantage in the fight against Tsolov for pole. With only three minutes and 21 seconds left on the clock, they had little time to get their into the ideal temperature window for setting fast laps.

The incident lent a slight advantage to the Rodin pair of Voisin and Roman Bilinski, who had crucially gone to the top two positions before the incident. Laurens van Hoepen also jumped up to third in his group ahead of Câmara.

Once the session resumed with 3:21 remaining, drivers had one chance to improve on their times. Not everyone did, but Bilinski came out on top with a final effort that propelled him to first by 0.027s over his teammate. Still, his lap, a 1:25.332, was not quick enough to beat Tsolov, giving the Bulgarian his maiden pole position in the series.

Bilinski will start alongside Tsolov on the front row on Sunday, validating his statement in a pre-event press session that he and Rodin had ‘a lot of potential as well for the upcoming rounds’.

Voisin settled for second, meaning Rodin emulated Campos by putting a car on each of the first two rows of the grid. Imola sprint winner Tramnitz, who had crossed the line less than a second before the chequered flag fell, got a second flying lap and claimed third. With that, he crucially outqualified Câmara, who will start from eighth on Sunday after having taken pole in all three prior rounds.

Van Hoepen was fifth in group B, boosting ART’s chances of their maiden podium in 2025 by lining up on the second row of the grid in the sprint race alongside teammate Taponen. Alessandro Giusti rounded out the top six, giving him a pivotal pole position for Saturday’s sprint race.

As Tsolov classified first and Boya third, the team will seek its first double podium in the series since the 2024 sprint race in Barcelona, in which the Spaniard took his maiden F3 win and Oliver Goethe finished third.

“It’s honestly great,” Tsolov told Feeder Series when asked about Campos’ qualifying results. “I think the team has done a really good job on making the car right and the adjustments right from FP to quali. I knew already from last year that Mari is really quick around the track, so he was pushing me to do well and he was pushing me to do a good lap. I think I was doing the same to him, so we kind of pushed each other really far and that’s probably what got us so quick in the end.”

Additional reporting by Tori Turner

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency