Six years after finishing last in the Formula 3 standings, Campos Racing secured their first teams’ championship in F1’s third-tier support series last weekend. Feeder Series spoke to team manager Andreu Romera in Monza to find out what’s driven the team’s turnaround in recent years.

By Tori Turner

In F3’s inaugural season in 2019, Campos Racing finished 10th and last in the teams’ championship with five points. They notched their first podium in 2020, their first sprint race win in 2021, and their first feature race win in 2023. 

That year, the team rose to fourth in the standings, scoring 179 points with three victories and a further three podiums. They achieved the same finishing position and number of points in 2024 despite having one fewer win.

Across a decade in F1’s third tier – the team spent four unspectacular years in F3 predecessor GP3 from 2015 to 2018 – the team had never fought for a championship title. The 2025 season was the turning point.

Armed with the series’ first new car since 2019 and a vastly experienced line-up, Campos made good on their steady improvement and finally took their first teams’ championship in 2025 after a close fight with Trident. Throughout the season, the Spanish team racked up six wins, a further eight podiums and three pole positions – all records for the team. 

“It is just an amazing feeling,” Romera told Feeder Series in the Monza paddock. “F3 is the most difficult championship around the world because you have 30 drivers, the level is really high, the track time is really limited and it’s really chaotic. It’s where you find a lot of difference in between drivers’ level and drivers’ experience. It’s the filter to the big paddock, to the F1 GPs. 

“It’s such an indescribable achievement for the team. This year is our 10th anniversary of doing GP3 and new F3. Being the winners is something that probably is not going to happen [often], but we have to really appreciate and celebrate it.”

Before the final round in Monza, Campos were 19 points behind Trident in the standings. Even with the Italian team’s advantage, the team never lost hope.

“We took it really easy,” Romera said. “We were coming here 20 points behind them and no matter that, we still made the T-shirts because we believed we could be winners.”

Their optimism proved well placed on Friday, when Inthraphuvasak and Tsolov secured fourth and fifth as Trident put no cars in the top 12. While Inthraphuvasak fell short of points on Saturday with 12th and Tsolov suffered a final-lap incident that left him 22nd, Campos still edged out Trident thanks to Boya, who scored Campos’ only points with fifth place despite starting 17th.

All three drivers then put in stellar performances during Sunday’s feature race, securing the team’s first 1-2 finish in F3 as well as the championship. On the day, the team scored 45 points to Trident’s 18, making them the 2025 champions by just 11 points.

Tsolov and Boya were also locked in battle for second in the drivers’ standings. While Boya had a two-point advantage entering the round, Tsolov ultimately prevailed, finishing the season with 124 points to the Spaniard’s 116. Inthraphuvasak’s feature race victory propelled him from 14th before the race to seventh afterwards.

“The commitment of our three drivers was also a key reason why we are winners today. With them, we have a history and they felt an important part of the team. I believe that they want to give back to the technicians, to everyone in the team, this title. 

“If you see how Tasanapol and Mari and Nikola have raced today, you realise that it is more than their ego. They were working together in a plan, which was winning the teams’ championship – no matter, in the end, who finished P2 or P3 in the case of Nikola and Mari. They were really happy and they were trying their best to make the team champions.”

Presenting… your 2025 Formula 3 teams’ champions, Campos Racing!#F3 #ItalianGP pic.twitter.com/UtgvTfcbog

— Michael McClure (@M1chaelMcClure) September 7, 2025

Unlike the other nine teams, which fielded at least one rookie, Campos chose three drivers with at least a season of prior F3 experience.

Tsolov switched from ART to Campos for his third season in 2025, having placed 11th in last year’s championship with three race wins. Fellow third-year Boya elected to remain with the Spanish team for 2025 after achieving his maiden F3 victory at their home race in 2024. Inthraphuvasak had the least experience, though he still had one year in F3 and one podium from his time with AIX Racing to bring to the table.

“That was really important at the beginning when we were developing the car but also during the race weekends,” Romera said. “F3 takes part in two months if you consider that we have triple headers and so on. So being sure that no matter what happened that weekend, we need to keep the same approach and same attitude to the next GP – no matter if we are coming from winning, no matter if we are coming from a disqualification that unfortunately we have to face.”

Whilst prior experience in F3 proved key to Campos’ championship run, the drivers’ familiarity with the team itself was just as crucial.

Tsolov, for one, began his single-seater career with Campos in 2022, winning the Spanish F4 title with 400 points and taking victories in 13 of the 21 races. He will continue with Campos in F2 next season, the team announced Tuesday.

“Nikola has a history [with the team] since F4. I took him when he was 14 and he did his first day ever in a single-seater car,” Romera said.

“I have the same engineer as I did in F4,” Tsolov told Feeder Series in the paddock. “It’s good to be back working with him, and we didn’t take too much time to get into the dynamic. I think that was key and really important for me.

“The team has progressed a lot. In 2022, they were in the backside of the pack [in F3] and now we’re fighting for the teams’ title, so it’s honestly incredible.”

Similarly, Inthraphuvasak ran with the Spanish team in Eurocup-3 in 2023, finishing sixth. Spanish driver Boya had never worked with the team in any previous single-seater championships before joining them last season.

“Tasanapol, after a difficult season, was back on the team,” Romera added. “We had a lot of success in the past together in the Eurocup-3 team.

“Hats off to Mari, because he trusted the project despite having some really good chances to move for this year to F2. It was a new [F3] car, so it was a bit of an unpredictable atmosphere. No matter what, he trusted the team and he wanted to stay at home despite his second season wasn’t how he expected. That’s why in the end, we will become winners.”

Behind the scenes, Campos underwent significant changes in leadership after the death of the team’s founder and owner Adrián Campos Sr in 2021. His oldest son, Adrián Campos Jr, took over as team principal and has continued to lead the Spanish outfit for the past five years, during which time they have joined several series below F2 and F3 on the junior ladder.

Campos’ expansion began with Spanish F4 in 2021. They placed second in the championship that year and won both the drivers’ and the teams’ title with Tsolov in 2022. Since then, the team have consistently placed either their main or their satellite team in the top three. 

They have been similarly strong in the Formula Winter Series, F1 Academy and Eurocup-3 since joining all three series in 2023. They won the teams’ title in the FRegional-level Eurocup-3’s first season in 2023 and the drivers’ title with Christian Ho the following season. 

 Campos’ F2 team – part of the second tier in various forms since GP2’s formation in 2005 – has experienced a similar growth to their F3 team. While they never finished higher than fifth in their first seven seasons, they excelled with the new car last year, turning their form around to place second in 2024 and provisionally third this season. 

For Romera, Campos’ growth is about more than just results. A major driver of their success, he said, has been returning to a philosophy focused on learning and development.

On the racing side, that includes the creation of the team’s F4 division as well as Campos leadership’s presence at the revived Red Bull Driver Search.

“We tried to come back to where Campos used to be really good – on teaching and integrating drivers and making their career as easy as possible in the transition from go-karts to single-seaters,” Romera said.

“One of the things that Adrián and myself believe is important is that we get involved already from when they are in F4, because we can basically explain to them what they are going to face. If you know how they are at the school and you can teach them the basics, then you get sure that in higher school and then in the university, they know what they are going to face.”

The development philosophy also extends to academia through the team’s partnership with Florida Universitària in Valencia. As part of a master’s in motorsport engineering and mechanics programme the two entities offer jointly, young engineers get hands-on experience with the team at race weekends, joining and learning from the team’s existing staff.

“It makes them feel really integrated, so they have Campos in their heart,” Romera said. “It’s not that they will try to switch and look for anything else. Stability was also another of our keys. In the end, 90 per cent of this team was [here] five years ago, when we were just P9 on the teams standing, and today they can say that they have won F3.”

Additional reporting by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency