Sunday’s Formula 3 feature race at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps was abandoned after just two laps behind the safety car as heavy rain meant conditions were not safe for racing. No points were awarded.

By Tori Turner and Michael McClure

Before the race had started, the standing water and rainfall already appeared to put the race at risk. Drivers were initially sent out for the formation lap on wet tyres behind the safety car, but race directors decided to suspend proceedings partway through the formation lap at 8:33 local as a result of the heavy rain and poor visibility around the track. Two incidents had already occurred, and it was clear that racing would be dangerous in those conditions.

First, AIX Racing’s James Hedley spun heading through Eau Rouge. He damaged his front wing but made it back to the pit lane.

Brando Badoer was not so lucky, hitting the back of Tim Tramnitz as they passed through the Kemmel Straight and causing both drivers to spin. Tramnitz managed to carry on with suspected damage, whilst Badoer was stranded on track with significant damage to the front of his car. 

The safety car continued to assess the track conditions while the drivers waited in pit lane, but it too aquaplaned at several corners.

During the red flag, several drivers expressed concerns about visibility on their radios. Freddie Slater, who joined Hitech for the round, said he had ‘never seen so much rain before in [his] life’. Slater had taken a last-to-first victory in wet conditions at Spa in GB3 nearly two months ago.

At 8:55, race direction announced that racing would resume at 9:05 behind the safety car with all drivers on wet-weather tyres. The track had dried somewhat when drivers left pit lane, but the spray still affected their visibility. 

On the first lap, Campos Racing’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak spun at Bruxelles, narrowly avoiding teammate Nikola Tsolov before coming to a stop. The race was then red-flagged again at 9:11 with only 15 minutes of time allotted for the race to be run. It was then announced at 9:16 that the race would not be resumed.

The drivers’ championship thus remains unchanged from after the sprint race, with Rafael Câmara on 126 points, Tsolov on 98, Tim Tramnitz on 93, Mari Boya on 85 and Noah Strømsted on 80 making up the top five. Assuming the race is not rescheduled, only the top 13 drivers in the drivers’ standings are now eligible for the championship crown.

Polesitter Brad Benavides of AIX Racing will retain his two points for taking pole position in qualifying.

Before today, the last F3 race cancellation due to adverse weather was the second sprint race at Sochi in September 2021, which never began. F2’s feature race in Melbourne earlier this year was also cancelled as a result of torrential rain, though F3’s feature race earlier in the day went ahead.

This is the second F3 feature race in succession to be affected by heavy rain. In the race at Silverstone three weeks ago, won by Aston Martin junior Mari Boya, partial points were awarded with only 12 of 22 laps completed after heavy rain fell partway through.

The 7.004-kilometre, 19-turn Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, nestled in the Ardennes Forest in eastern Belgium, is notorious for being conducive to heavy rain and low visibility. Last year’s F2 sprint race at Spa was also truncated after already being delayed because of rainfall earlier in the day, with drivers completing just seven laps before the race was halted. 

Nearly half of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit was resurfaced last June, and new gutters and grooving were added in the winter of 2024 to improve drainage and groundwater flow. Those improvements came after the tragic death of Dilano van ’t Hoff in a FRegional Europe race at the circuit in 2023 in wet conditions.

The rain has stopped since the F3 race was halted. At the time of publication, F2 drivers had just completed their reconnaissance laps ahead of the feature race at 10:00.

Additional reporting by Hanne Scheepers

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency