Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak took home his second sprint race victory of the Formula 3 season in Budapest, holding his nerve in a last-lap shootout against Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu as Charlie Wurz took third away from James Hedley on the final lap. Feeder Series spoke to the podium finishers about tyre degradation and their expectations for the feature race.

By Daniele Spadi

At the start, the top three stayed as they were, with Inthraphuvasak maintaining first place while Hedley and James Wharton followed suit. Behind, Brando Badoer climbed up to fourth, passing Alessandro Giusti on the run to Turn 1. Wurz then passed the Williams junior into Turn 11.

Ugochukwu was next in line and went around the outside of Giusti at Turn 12 but they made contact, leaving the Frenchman with damage to his front-left suspension. Unable to steer his car properly, Giusti skidded off track into the barriers entering Turn 13. The safety car came out on track for two laps to recover his car left stranded in sector three before proceedings resumed on lap four. The incident is being investigated after the race.

In the first half of the sprint, Hedley looked competitive enough to challenge Inthraphuvasak for the lead, but the real threat was coming from behind. Ugochukwu overtook teammate Badoer for fourth in Turn 13 on lap five, setting the fastest lap of the race moments later. On lap seven, the McLaren junior driver took third away from Wharton at Turn 1.

Meanwhile, championship leader Rafael Câmara was busy trying to get inside the top 10 from 12th on the grid. On lap six, the Brazilian almost collided with Brad Benavides heading into Turn 6 while defending 11th. The American cut the corner and took the place but had to concede it the following lap, losing two further positions to Noel León and Santiago Ramos in the process. Câmara eventually overtook Tuukka Taponen and Gerrard Xie to climb into the top 10 by lap 12.

On lap 10, Ugochukwu went on the attack for second. Hedley defended firmly at first, but he went wide into Turn 4 on the next lap. That released the Prema driver and enabled him to pursue Inthraphuvasak, who had built a one-second gap over the pair.

In the fight for the win, Ugochukwu put heavy pressure on Inthraphuvasak’s shoulders, though he waited to make a move on the Thai driver as both tried to manage their tyres ahead of the imminent fight.

Unfortunately for the American, he had waited too long. On lap 15, his teammate León made contact with Théophile Naël at Turn 4 as they battled for eighth. The Prema driver was stranded on track and knocked out of the race, requiring a second safety car intervention.

Green-flag racing resumed at the end of lap 18 for a last-lap shootout. Ugochukwu tried to close in on Intrhaphuvasak into Turn 1, but he had a heavy lock-up on entry and ran wide on exit. That released the pressure from the Campos Racing driver, who seemed to have better tyres than his rival from that moment onwards. Inthraphuvasak ultimately crossed the line to take his second win in the last five races following his maiden F3 victory in the sprint race at Silverstone.

“For 19 laps, it was okay to manage,” Inthraphuvasak told Feeder Series in the post-race press conference. “We had two safety cars so it helped over a little bit, but for sure I felt that the deg was a lot more of a factor than compared to last year with the mediums now.”

F3 brought back the medium compound to the Hungaroring round after trialling hard tyres in 2024. When the championship last used mediums at the circuit in 2023, the feature race had to be shortened from 24 to 19 laps because of concerns over excessive tyre wear, which remains a consideration this weekend.

“It plays a big factor in tomorrow’s race,” said Inthraphuvasak, who starts 12th tomorrow. “Obviously it’s a longer race, so we have to manage a bit more. But it also opens a lot of opportunities for me starting from P12, and a lot of opportunities to overtake at the end of the race as well when other people are struggling with tyres.”

Ugochukwu claimed second place for the second consecutive race and scored an extra point for setting the fastest lap among the top 10 finishers. He had similar thoughts when asked whether tyre degradation would be a big factor in Sunday’s 24-lap race.

“Definitely,” he told Feeder Series. “It will be even trickier to keep the tyres until the end. For us starting in P7, big deg just plays into our hands even more. If we can be on top of the tyres, we can eventually, towards the end of the race, try to make some positions and make some moves. It’s a good thing for us. It might spice up the race a little bit and cause a bit more chaos.”

In the fight for third, Trident driver Wurz enjoyed a strong restart and overtook Hedley, who was likewise struggling with tyre degradation, for third at the opening corner of the final lap. With that result, he too secured his second podium in two weekends after finishing third in the sprint in Spa.

“Everyone will fine-tune their cars, and [on Sunday] it will be a bit more of a difficult race to overtake, with everyone making a bit more steps forward,” Wurz told Feeder Series. “It was of course a bit of an unknown how the tyres will deg, but now we know. We have an idea and we can improve that.”

Hedley had to settle for fourth after nurturing the dream of his maiden podium finish in the series for much of the race. Still, he enjoyed his first career F3 points ahead of Wharton and Badoer, who scored his best result of the season in sixth.

Boya led Câmara home in the fight for seventh, which could prove decisive for both championships. The Aston Martin junior is now 42 points behind his Ferrari-backed rival, while Campos are just 10 points behind Trident for the lead of the teams’ standings.

Naël nursed his car home for ninth following his incident with León, while Xie crossed the finish line in 10th to take points for the first time in his F3 career. This brings the number of drivers to score points this season up to 29, a record for the series since its rebranding in 2019.

It was a tough race for Câmara’s main rivals in the drivers’ championship. Starting from outside the top 15, Nikola Tsolov and Tim Tramnitz both failed to score points, with the German coming home 13th and the Bulgarian crossing the line two places behind in 15th. Feature race polesitter Câmara can clinch the championship, which he currently leads by 33 points, if his advantage after tomorrow is 40 points or greater.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency