Round eight of the 2025 F3 season at the legendary Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps featured a first-time polesitter on Friday and a first-time winner on Saturday  before torrential rain prevented Sunday’s feature race from getting underway. Feeder Series brings you the main takeaways from Belgian round.

By Daniele Spadi

Mari Boya topped the practice session delayed because of fog before AIX Racing took their first pole position in the series under any name on Friday. In a surprising turn of events, Brad Benavides put in a faultless performance to secure his second front-row start of the season – this time taking pole after qualifying in second at the Red Bull Ring.

Though Freddie Slater started from reverse-grid pole in the sprint race, Trident’s Noah Strømsted ultimately stormed to victory. McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu finished second as Charlie Wurz completed a Trident double podium for the first time since the feature race in Imola. But Spa is known for having spells of torrential rain throughout the weekend, and this year was no different. On Sunday, the weather made it impossible for the feature race to get underway safely despite two efforts in vain to start proceedings behind the safety car.

• Pre-weekend roundtable: Boya: ‘Luck has been a bit more on our side’ with three podiums in a row
• Qualifying report and quotes: Benavides stuns in Spa to take his and AIX’s first F3 pole
• Sprint race report and quotes: Trident’s Strømsted takes ‘quite easy’ maiden F3 victory in Spa sprint
• Feature race report and quotes: Spa F3 feature race abandoned because of heavy rain

1. Flashes of brilliance for Brad Benavides…

After the third seat at AIX was filled by Nikita Bedrin in Melbourne and Freddie Slater in Bahrain, Brad Benavides jumped behind the wheel of car #28 from round three onwards. The American was therefore back with the team with whom he had raced in the 2023 F2 season, this time in the series in which he competed back in 2022 with Carlin.

Benavides had some great performances here and there this year, including some fine overtakes in Monaco and an unexpected second-place finish in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring. At the latter event, he struggled to stay with the leading group in the feature race, ultimately finishing in ninth to score his first two points of the season.

His best performance came this Friday, however, as he vaulted to the top from 24th with a little over three minutes remaining in qualifying thanks to a stellar 2:04.253. This marked the first pole position for both the American and AIX in F3. It also gave the 24-year-old the chance to improve on his best-ever F3 race result of eighth, which he took around the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps three years ago.

The American has now accumulated vast experience in single-seater racing, including a full F3 campaign with Carlin in 2022 – the year championship leader Rafael Câmara made the transition from karting to Formula 4 – and a title-winning campaign in Euroformula Open in 2024. In 2025, Benavides is showcasing a level of maturity in both his decision-making and his driving that has been beneficial to AIX, too, as the team look to lay down the foundation to become a force to be reckoned with.

2. …but torrential rain halts proceedings on Sunday

But the opportunity for Benavides to fight for his maiden F3 victory was taken away from him on Sunday. The paddock woke up to stormy weather right before the feature race, and the heavy rainfall and significant standing water on the circuit made it impossible for the race to start as usual.

The formation lap therefore began behind the safety car, though it didn’t take long for incidents to happen. Benavides’ teammate James Hedley was the first to lose control of his car, spinning at Eau Rouge and damaging his front wing in the process. A few metres later, Brando Badoer ploughed into an unsighted Tim Tramnitz on the Kemmel Straight, with the Italian sustaining damage that forced him to retire.

After coming back into the pits, drivers went out on track half an hour later, this time to tick off laps behind the safety car. But after Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak spun and got stranded at Bruxelles, the race was once again red-flagged at the end of lap two before race control opted not to resume proceedings. F3 regulations stipulate that races with two or fewer laps completed do not count for points.

Benavides’ frustration at losing a potential race win was understandable, though the decision to call off the race was wise. Everyone agreed that the track was far too wet for the race to proceed safely.

3. Câmara inches closer to the title

Such a decision meant that the championship standings were not affected by Sunday’s proceedings. Championship leader Rafael Câmara therefore retained his 28-point lead over Nikola Tsolov.

Though Câmara was set to start the feature race from the front row following another impressive display in qualifying, its abandonment may prove beneficial for the Trident driver. His rivals now have one fewer race to gain points on him, and just 78 points remain on offer.

In the sole F3 race completed at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Câmara finished in fifth place as the lowest-placed Trident in the sprint, with teammates Noah Strømsted and Charlie Wurz crossing the line in first and third respectively. Tsolov was fourth in the sprint, taking home only one more point than Câmara – meaning the gap between the two barely changing in the past two rounds. The Ferrari academy member is now on 126 points, with the Red Bull junior on 98.

Meanwhile, both Tramnitz and Mari Boya failed to finish the sprint race in the top 10 and did not add to their 93- and 85-point tallies respectively. Câmara’s main rivals failed to make significant inroads in Spa, meaning that with just two rounds left, the Brazilian can finish no lower than sixth in the drivers’ standings.

4. Strømsted finally shines

Before any driver turned a wheel in 2025, Noah Strømsted marked himself out as a driver to watch for the title hunt. The 2024 FRegional Europe rookie champion had secured a seat with Trident for the 2025 F3 season, taking over the berth vacated by 2024 champion Leonardo Fornaroli. 

After having to retire following a collision in his first F3 race in Melbourne, he delivered five consecutive top-10 finishes, including two second places in feature races in Melbourne and Imola. But the 17-year-old then struggled to continue his early form in the middle part of the season. Scoreless rounds in both Monaco and Silverstone meant that he took home just 10 points in the eight races before Spa.

In Spa, Strømsted qualified in 11th, thus guaranteeing himself a front-row start for the sprint. The Danish driver overtook Freddie Slater on lap three and extended his lead to more than two seconds by the race’s halfway point. No one was able to catch him, let alone sustain his race pace, which propelled him to take his maiden F3 win – his first in single-seaters since he won the final Danish F4 race in 2021 – by a dominant 6.044s, the largest winning margin in a sprint race this season.

Being on the same team as the championship leader – who also happens to be in his first F3 campaign – tends to mean Strømsted’s season has been overshadowed, though the Dane is the second best rookie in the championship points-wise. The 17-year-old currently sits in sixth place in the drivers’ standings with 73 points, 15 more than next-best rookie Théophile Naël.

Results and standings after round 8 at Spa

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Brad Benavides, 2:04.253	Rafael Câmara, +0.106s	Callum Voisin, +0.207s
Sprint race (12 laps)	Noah Strømsted, 25:49.564	Ugo Ugochukwu, +6.044s	Charlie Wurz, +8.081s
Feature race (2 laps, no points)	Brad Benavides, 7:26.913	Rafael Câmara, +1.457s	Callum Voisin, +4.405s

*No points were awarded for the feature race because no more than two laps were completed.

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Rafael Câmara, 126	Trident, 232
P2	Nikola Tsolov, 98	Campos Racing, 221
P3	Tim Tramnitz, 93	MP Motorsport, 164
P4	Mari Boya, 85	Van Amersfoort Racing, 124
P5	Martinius Stenshorne, 80	ART Grand Prix, 119
P6	Noah Strømsted, 73	Rodin Motorsport, 108
P7	Théophile Naël, 58	Hitech, 80
P8	Alessandro Giusti, 55	Prema Racing, 54
P9	Tuukka Taponen, 52	AIX Racing, 31
P10	Roman Bilinski, 49	DAMS, 23

Read our takeaways from the previous round here.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency