Trident’s Rafael Câmara scored his third victory of the 2025 Formula 3 season in the feature race at Barcelona, leading all 25 laps of the race after securing a record-breaking fourth pole on Friday. Van Amersfoort Racing’s Théophile Naël finished second, whilst Alessandro Giusti took his first podium in the series thanks to a last-lap pass.

By Tori Turner

Having taken pole position by 0.216 seconds on Friday, Ferrari junior Câmara maintained the lead heading into Turn 1, facing little threat from the drivers behind him. His closest championship rival, Nikola Tsolov, had a sluggish start from second on the grid and fell through the order, ending the lap down in eighth.

Tuukka Taponen and Martinius Stenshorne gained five places each on the opening lap to run fourth and fifth, though they were several seconds behind Théophile Naël

Those gaps remained until the safety car came out on lap three following a collision between Roman Bilinski and newcomer José Garfias, who were involved in an incident at Turn 4. 

When racing resumed on lap eight, Stenshorne passed Taponen to take fourth. Shortly after, the Ferrari junior slowed down suddenly and tumbled down the order to 26th. Taponen remained in the race once the matter had resolved itself, though he ran near the bottom of the pack and finished 19th.

In the meantime, Tsolov began his recovery drive by passing Ivan Domingues, yesterday’s sprint race winner, for seventh just after the restart. Giusti likewise started his charge to the podium when he overtook Stenshorne for fourth on lap 11, and Stenshorne dropped another position when Tsolov passed him on lap 17. 

The safety car reappeared on lap 18 after Brando Badoer and Nicola Lacorte made contact at Turn 1, ending the Prema driver’s race prematurely. Lacorte carried on but received a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision, while he also earned a 30-second penalty for a safety car infringement. 

Before the feature race, the Italian driver, who turned 18 today, had 11 penalty points on his licence, just one away from earning a race ban.

After the safety car restart at the end of lap 20, Naël swept past Laurens van Hoepen around the outside of Turn 1 to move up to second. He held the position to secure his second podium of his rookie season, 2.130s behind Câmara. MP Motorsport’s Giusti then passed Van Hoepen for third on the final lap to earn his first podium after taking seven consecutive points finishes since Bahrain. 

Tsolov ended up finishing fifth after recovering three positions throughout the race. Domingues in sixth took home his second points finish of the season after his victory on Saturday, while Tramnitz went from 13th to seventh after starting the race with a three-place grid penalty for causing a collision during the sprint. 

Noah Strømsted finished where he started in eighth, whilst Stenshorne barely held onto the points in ninth despite running in the top five during the early stages of the race. Having started 16th, Callum Voisin scored the final point of the race after original 10th-place finisher James Wharton earned a penalty for exceeding track limits too many times.

Having also set the fastest lap on lap eight, Câmara leaves Barcelona with 105 points in the championship, extending his lead over Tsolov to 26 points. Tramnitz sits just nine points behind Tsolov in third, after heading into the round second. Trident, meanwhile, still lead the teams’ championship with 176 points, but the fight for second is close between Campos Racing and MP Motorsport, who have 130 and 126 points respectively. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency