Formula 3 championship leader Rafael Câmara took home his fifth pole position of the season despite a tricky, close-fought qualifying session, narrowly edging out Mari Boya by eight thousandths of a second. Feeder Series spoke to both drivers after their qualifying efforts.

By Daniele Spadi

Câmara had already set the fastest lap in the sole practice session of the weekend earlier today, while Spa polesitter Brad Benavides once again showed his one-lap prowess by finishing second, just 0.064s behind him.

The gaps remained close in qualifying, with less than a hundredth separating three pairs of drivers in the top seven and a second covering the top 27. But Trident’s Câmara prevailed once more to take a record-breaking fifth pole and put himself in prime position to clinch the drivers’ championship as early as this Sunday. Nearest title rivals Tim Tramnitz MP Motorsport and Nikola Tsolov of Campos Racing were only 17th and 21st.

In the opening stages of qualifying, Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu set the pace with a 1:33.436 before Noah Strømsted and Laurens van Hoepen narrowly beat the American’s time. Câmara’s first flying lap put him fifth fastest, but he had his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits, with the 20-year-old complaining on the radio about understeer.

Campos Racing chose a different strategy relative to the rest of the field, waiting for everyone to get their laps in before going out with all three cars. Their decision proved inspired, as a scorching 1:33.013 propelled Mari Boya to first, with Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak in second and Nikola Tsolov in fourth.

“I think Campos today did a really good job, and they can be really proud,” Boya told Feeder Series after his qualifying efforts.

“The team did a really good strategy. We knew that we didn’t have the best place on the pit lane. We know how short this track is and how easy it is to be too slow in the last sector and don’t have the tyre ready to start the push [lap].”

Drivers went out for their second runs halfway through the session, and Charlie Wurz set the fastest lap time until that point with a 1:32.737, just one thousandth quicker than Ugochukwu’s best. This time, Câmara avoided any track limits violations, climbing up to fifth, 0.110s off his teammate.

Once again, Campos stayed out of sync with the others, and while Boya re-took top spot by 0.084s over Wurz on his next run, championship hopeful Tsolov only managed the 15th-fastest time.

Five minutes before the end, a plethora of drivers started their preparations for their final runs, leading to a couple of close calls due to traffic. In one such incident, Câmara was forced to pit to avoid colliding with Martinius Stenshorne and Alessandro Giusti entering Turn 14.

“[It was a] very tricky qualifying for myself,” the Brazilian told Feeder Series. “First lap was the track limits, and second push a bit of traffic. I set the lap a bit too close to the car in front, and then I knew the last lap would be the one that will count.

“In the end somehow we managed to save this quali because when I went in the pit lane, I thought it was over. I had to basically stay on track for two laps without doing anything, just making sure the tyres were in the window.”

With two minutes left on the clock, times started to tumble once again.  ART’s Tuukka Taponen edged out Boya by just 0.001s, while Hitech’s Gerrard Xie shot up to third, 11 thousandths off pole and just one thousandth ahead of Théophile Naël.

In the dying stages of qualifying, Câmara proved his worth once again, putting together a clean lap to go 0.142s clear of Taponen.

Still, Boya looked like the favourite for pole through the first two sectors. After sector two he was 55 thousandths up on the Brazilian, but a weaker final sector of the lap put him second, eight thousandths off Câmara’s 1:32.510.

“We maximized really well, set one and set two especially,” the Spaniard told Feeder Series. “Set three was also going to plan, but a little error cost us maybe [a bit of] time. I would say that maybe could have put us on pole, but still in F3, qualifying in the top five is the most important thing.”

“When I started the lap, I knew it needed to be that one,” Câmara told Feeder Series. “I just made sure that everything would be clean, nice and tidy. In the end it was a very good result., [I’m] very happy.”

The result marks a record-breaking fifth pole of the season for Câmara, who is now the only driver with more than four pole positions in the history of the series since its rebranding in 2019. It was arguably his most impressive one too given the multiple events that disrupted his rhythm throughout the 30 minutes.

“On my side it was a very stressful quali,” the championship leader revealed to Feeder Series. “I would say this season, for sure, it was my peak of adrenaline because it was very, very intense with the team, how we managed the situation.”

Taponen held on to third as Xie outdid his previous best qualifying position of 17th with an impressive fourth, marking the first time a Chinese driver has qualified in the top four in FIA F3. Naël finished fifth, with Wurz ultimately settling for sixth.

Ugochukwu went no higher than seventh, a disappointing result considering his pace early in the session, while Prema Racing teammate Brando Badoer took eighth for his best qualifying result of 2025. Alessandro Giusti and James Wharton rounded out the top 10.

James Hedley surprised to take home 11th, a career-best result in F3. The AIX driver will therefore start Saturday’s sprint from second on the grid, on the same track where the team took home its first ever 1-2 finish in the 2024 sprint race. Tasanapol Intraphuvasak, who finished second on that occasion, will be alongside him on reverse-grid pole.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency