Hitech’s Martinius Stenshorne started the Spielberg F3 feature race 15th but inherited victory after original winner Nikola Tsolov was disqualified post-race for running a front plank with insufficient thickness. Tim Tramnitz and Mari Boya, who started 17th and 14th respectively, also moved up a position to join him on the podium.

By Tori Turner

Red Bull junior Tsolov crossed the line first at his academy’s namesake track with an impressive 6.646-second gap over Stenshorne in second. In doing so, he had provisionally diminished the championship lead of Rafael Câmara, who finished sixth on track, to just one point after the Brazilian entered the round 26 points ahead. 

Tsolov’s post-race disqualification, however, changed everything and put him back to his pre-race total of 89 points. Câmara now has 117 points, with Tramnitz his next closest challenger on 93. Tramnitz ended up second behind new race winner Stenshorne after making up a total of 14 positions on track throughout the 26-lap race, while new Aston Martin junior Boya took the final podium position of the race.

The document announcing Tsolov’s disqualification mentioned that the noncompliant front plank was below the minimum permitted thickness of 4.0 mm accounting for ‘ordinary wear and tear’. The technical delegates’ report indicated that the front plank had ‘a maximum thickness of 3.7mm at the periphery of one of the designated holes’.

“[Campos Racing] noted that a section of the plank was missing at the edge on the same side that was found to be noncompliant,” the document read. “They offered that whatever impact damaged the edge could have also caused that side of the plank to thereafter ride lower thus causing the nonconformity. The Team did not offer any incident that could have caused the damage other than transitting curbs which the Stewards consider to be a normal part of racing. The Technical Delegate stated that the plank appeared to be a normal post-race plank.”

Polesitter Tsolov kept his lead on the run to Turn 1, storming ahead of Brad Benavides and Noah Strømsted. Further down the grid, Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Bruno Del Pino struggled off the line and dropped to the back half of the 30-car field. Their slow starts played into the hands of Câmara, who moved up from seventh to fifth.

Tsolov was more than a second in front by lap two, further increasing his lead as Benavides and Strømsted began fighting for second place. Strømsted attempted to pass the AIX Racing driver in Turn 4, but Benavides stood firm around the outside. 

Once DRS was activated the next lap, Benavides was a sitting duck. Strømsted and Ugo Ugochukwu overtook him on the run to Turn 3, and Câmara pounced on him at Turn 7 to snatch fourth before Callum Voisin and Brando Badoer also passed him exiting Turn 8. The multiple overtakes left him sitting in seventh, and he dropped out of the points entirely on lap six after running wide through the gravel at Turn 4 while battling with Stenshorne for seventh.

The previous lap, Câmara had moved up into the podium positions by passing Strømsted for third at Turn 4. He then set his sights on Ugochukwu in second, lunging down his inside at Turn 3 on lap seven. The American instantly snatched the position back after Câmara ran deep, but the Brazilian ensured the move stuck when he passed him again in Turn 4. Ugochukwu then lost third to Strømsted at the same spot the next lap.

Outside of the podium positions, Stenshorne, who had risen from 15th to seventh during the opening six laps, passed Brando Badoer for sixth at Turn 3 on lap nine. Mari Boya also made a move on the Italian on the next lap before Tramnitz, who had also made up eight positions from 17th on the grid, overtook both to take seventh.

Badoer thus fell to ninth and quickly dropped out of the points by the end of the lap after sustaining suspension damage while battling Théophile Naël. He was the only non-finisher of the race when he pulled into pit lane.

While misfortune befell one McLaren junior, another thrived. After Ugochukwu ran deep at Turn 3 on lap 14, Stenshorne passed him to take fourth before moving up into the podium positions when he passed Strømsted at the next corner. Tramnitz then passed Ugochukwu around the outside of Turn 6 on lap 15, moving the German driver up into fifth.

On lap 18, Stenshorne received DRS after closing the gap to second-placed Câmara to less than a second, and he made the move on the Brazilian at Turn 3 on the next lap. Behind them, Strømsted had run wide at Turn 10 and gotten a poor exit, immediately giving fourth place to Tramnitz. Ugochukwu and Boya then slipped through at Turn 4 to move into fifth and sixth respectively, and Boya overtook Ugochukwu exiting Turn 3 on lap 21 after having set the fastest lap.

Just when it seemed Câmara did all he could to limit points lost, he found himself vulnerable again. His descent began on lap 24 of 26 when Tramnitz passed him for third at Turn 3. Boya, who started 14th, subsequently passed the Ferrari junior for fourth at the penultimate turn, and Ugochukwu also overtook him at Turn 6 on the final lap, leaving him to cross the line sixth. Ugochukwu’s pass on Câmara became the move for fourth after Tsolov’s disqualification.

Having been spun out of Saturday’s sprint race, Charlie Wurz finished sixth after overtaking both Voisin and Strømsted on lap 22. Despite starting third, Strømsted ended the race down in seventh, while Voisin finished eighth, less than a second ahead of front-row starter Benavides in ninth. Naël took the final point.

Laurens van Hoepen had originally finished ninth after starting 22nd, but he too was disqualified for having tyre pressures below the minima specified in the F3 regulations for his front left tyre and both rear tyres.

Editor’s note, 29 June 2025, 15:22 CEST: This article was amended after publication to reflect the news that original race winner Nikola Tsolov and ninth-place finisher Laurens van Hoepen had been disqualified and that all drivers behind each of them moved up one place in the classification.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency