F3 once again produced excellent racing across this year’s 10 rounds, and between impressive rookies and established names, some drivers shone more than others. Feeder Series reveals the 10 best drivers of the 2025 F3 season.

By Daniele Spadi

10) Alessandro Giusti (P10, 67 points)

A member of the Williams Driver Academy, Alessandro Giusti had raised the eyebrows of many in recent years thanks to two impressive FRegional Europe campaigns with G4 Racing and ART Grand Prix that gifted him five wins across two seasons.

In 2025, the Frenchman rightly stepped up to F3, partnering up with MP Motorsport for his rookie season. Though Giusti struggled to hit the ground running in Melbourne, he was already up to speed in Sakhir, where he finished seventh in both races.

What followed was a streak of seven further points finishes, which included the 19-year-old’s first two podiums in the series. He was third in the feature at Barcelona before going one better at the Red Bull Ring in a chaotic sprint race.

A spell of disappointing results in the following five races then yielded just a single point, but he was back on his usual form for the final three races, once again taking home valuable points across the final two rounds.

Ultimately, Giusti finished his rookie season in 10th with 67 points – 27 behind his experienced teammate Tim Tramnitz, yet still comfortably outscoring third MP Motorsport driver Bruno Del Pino. Such a promising campaign was enough for him to be retained by the Dutch outfit, and the two will link up once more in 2026 as Giusti looks to fight for his maiden win in the series.

9) Ugo Ugochukwu (P16, 43 points)

A rather lacklustre 2024 FR Europe campaign left everyone wondering if Ugo Ugochukwu had what it took to fight for podiums and race wins in what would be his maiden F3 campaign. The American joined Prema at what proved to be the most difficult time for the Italian outfit in the history of the series, however, as the team struggled to come to terms with the new F3 car.

As a result, Ugochukwu was left fighting for scraps in the first half of the season. Two points finishes in the first half of the season left him with just four points to his name, with Prema being at the bottom of the teams’ standings with just eight points scored in the first 10 races.

At the Red Bull Ring, the McLaren junior rocked up with a stripped-down livery that only featured coloured logos on a carbon-fibre chassis – an effort to reduce the weight of his car. This apparently minor change proved to be fundamental for his season, as he suddenly looked much quicker and more at ease in the car. In Austria, he crossed the line third in the sprint, though a post-race penalty dropped him outside the points. He still finished fourth in the feature, his best result by far up until that point.

Three consecutive top five finishes in the next three sprints – including two podiums in Spa-Francorchamps and Budapest – revealed that the American had the pace to fight against the very best, as he showcased throughout the entire second half of the season.

In the end, Ugochukwu finished his rookie season in 16th with 43 points – 39 of which came in the second half of the year. A turnaround this noteworthy puts a lot of expectations on the 18-year-old, who will join reigning teams’ champions Campos Racing for his second F3 campaign next year.

8) Noah Strømsted (P6, 84 points)

Many F3 viewers considered Noah Strømsted one of the most exciting F3 rookies to watch in 2025 following his brilliant FR Europe campaign with RPM the year prior, when he had finished sixth and won the rookie championship.

Joining Trident, the Dane had high hopes for his maiden season in the championship. A promising start meant he collected his first podium in the opening feature race of the season in Melbourne, finishing second behind teammate Rafael Câmara.

Consistency was a huge factor in Strømsted’s favour during the following two rounds. He scored points in all four races and finished second in the feature at Imola, beating Câmara and showing great qualities in both tyre preservation and racecraft.

The Mercedes junior began struggling in the middle stages of the season, however, scoring points on just two occasions between rounds four and seven. At the historic Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, he finally struck gold, roaring to a dominant victory in the sprint to claim his first – and so far only – win in the series.

Strømsted ultimately finished his rookie season in sixth, which would place him much higher in these rankings if it wasn’t for the sizable 82-point gap to his teammate and fellow rookie Câmara, who took the drivers’ title. Still, it was a promising campaign for Strømsted, who has been retained by Trident for the 2026 F3 season.

7) Roman Bilinski (P11, 65 points)

Roman Bilinski had a rough 2024 punctuated by a road accident that caused him to break two vertebrae and kept him away from racing for three months. Despite that setback, his promising results in FR Europe and his title win in FR Oceania over the winter granted him a shot in F3 with Rodin.

As he partnered Callum Voisin and Louis Sharp, the two previous GB3 champions, the Polish driver was not expected to be the leading force among his teammates. Bilinski was quick to set the record straight, however, as he finished third in his very first race in Melbourne.

Another strong showing in Imola netted him points in both the sprint and the feature, and a phenomenal lap in qualifying at Monaco was enough for him to line up on the front row of the grid on Sunday. He kept his nerves and scored a brilliant second place finish in the feature – a result that proved to be his best one until the final round of the season.

In that race at Monza, Bilinski fought tooth and nail in the sprint to climb from seventh on the grid, and following Tim Tramnitz’s post-race penalty, he was promoted to first, thus claiming his maiden win in the series. Another strong feature race the day after, in which he finished seventh, meant that Bilinski ended up 11th in the standings, crucially finishing ahead of both his teammates and scoring 65 of Rodin’s 128 points.

Such a promising season led him to secure a spot in F2 next year with DAMS. Bilinski is in fact set to bring the Polish flag back to a second-tier championship for the first time since 2012, when Kevin Mirocha competed in the unrelated FIA Formula Two series.

6) Martinius Stenshorne (P5, 89 points)

Ever since his breakout season in 2023, when he fought long and hard against Andrea Kimi Antonelli for the FR Europe title, Martinius Stenshorne has been on the radar of teams and fans alike. Many expected the Norwegian to take a big step in the right direction after an underwhelming rookie F3 campaign in 2024 and become a title contender in 2025.

Staying on for a second consecutive season with Hitech, Stenshorne started off strong in Melbourne – the track where he took his first F3 win last year – as he finished second in the opening sprint of the season. He then took eighth in the feature before climbing back into the top five in the sprint at Sakhir. 

Three scoreless races ensued before Stenshorne went back to winning ways in Monaco, where he capitalised on a front-row start to take the win on Saturday. He was also finally able to leave his mark in the longer, more valuable feature races at the Red Bull Ring, where he inherited the win after Nikola Tsolov was handed a post-race disqualification.

The last four weekends epitomised his season. Though he took two more podiums in Silverstone and Monza, he also failed to score in four of the other five races. This rather inconsistent rhythm left him fifth at the end of the season, his season highlighted by two wins and three further podiums.

Stenshorne has enjoyed the support of the McLaren Driver Development Programme up until the end of the 2025, but he will no longer be a McLaren junior next year. Regardless, he will race in F2 in 2026 with Rodin. He has already tasted F2 racing, having competed for Trident in Baku before joining Rodin for the final two rounds of the season. A seventh-place finish in the sprint at Lusail has been his best F2 result so far.

5) Théophile Naël (P8, 72 points)

After playing a huge role in shaping Saintéloc Racing’s single-seater legacy – dominating the 2023 Spanish F4 season with them as well as taking the team’s maiden FR Europe win last year – Théophile Naël left the French outfit to join Van Amersfoort Racing for his maiden F3 campaign.

The Frenchman was quick off the blocks, scoring his maiden podium in the series on his second attempt as he finished third in the soaking wet feature race at Albert Park. He found it difficult to replicate that result, however, as he went scoreless in the following six races.

He was back in top shape at Barcelona, where he finished fifth in the sprint and second in the feature. A third feature race podium came later at Silverstone, where he once again shone in adverse weather conditions to take yet another second-place finish on a Sunday.

Three further points finishes in the last four races helped him rise to eighth in the final standings, having scored 52 percent of Van Amersfoort Racing’s total points. Naël, who later won the prestigious FR World Cup in Macau in November, will stay on for a second F3 season, joining Campos Racing and looking to fight for the drivers’ crown while helping Campos defend the teams’.

4) Tim Tramnitz (P4, 94 points)

Following a promising F3 rookie campaign in 2024 with MP Motorsport, Tim Tramnitz opted to stay with the Dutch outfit for a second season to take a stab at the drivers’ title.

Consistency was the German’s primary quality in the first half of the season. Tramnitz scored points in 10 of the first 12 races and never left the top six in feature races. His best results came in races four and five, as he finished third in the feature race at Sakhir and won the following sprint at Imola.

Following his third podium of the year – obtained at the Red Bull Ring, where he finished second in the feature after starting all the way down in 17th – the MP Motorsport driver was second in the standings, 24 points off Câmara. Tramnitz was arguably the most consistent driver on the grid, and he looked like a genuine title contender by that point.

But what followed was the roughest patch of results in his racing career so far. His qualifying form plummeted and he missed out on top-12 starting positions in both Spa and Budapest, making his life much more difficult, and his race pace began to falter too. He was back on form for the final round of the season, taking an unexpected race win in the sprint at Monza, though he was later penalised for a start procedure infringement and dropped to 18th.

Tramnitz ultimately scored just a single point in the remaining seven races and barely held on to fourth in the drivers’ standings. For the 2026 season, Tramnitz was looking likely to step up to F2 – a feat many argue he deserves after his two compelling F3 seasons. The move, however, failed to materialise, leaving the German seeking other solutions to stay in the racing world.

3) Mari Boya (P3, 116 points)

Mari Boya was one of the few drivers who opted to stay in F3 for a third consecutive season, prolonging his partnership with Campos Racing. Though the Spaniard looked rapid in pre-season testing, he failed to capitalise on his potential in the early stages of the season, scoring points just twice across the first six races.

Monaco proved to be the turning point of his season, as a great qualifying performance put him third on the grid – a position he kept on Sunday to score his maiden feature race podium. Though he failed to replicate such results in Barcelona, he was back out front at the Red Bull Ring, where he finished fifth in the sprint and third in the feature.

The highlight of Boya’s 2025 campaign came at Silverstone. After finishing third in the sprint, he showed incredible dexterity and car control in treacherous conditions during the feature, taking the lead of the race and keeping it until a red flag put a premature end to proceedings. Despite the anticlimactic ending and a reduced points allocation, he still scored enough to rise to fourth in the drivers’ standings and becoming a late if unlikely title challenger.

Another strong weekend came in Budapest, where he finished second in the feature, though by that point he was too far behind Câmara to stop him from taking home the title. The Aston Martin junior ultimately settled for third in the drivers’ standings, aiding Campos Racing on their quest to claim their maiden teams’ title in the process.

Boya is set to jump up to Formula 2 in 2026, joining Prema Racing for his maiden campaign in the world’s most important feeder series championship.

2) Nikola Tsolov (P2, 124 points)

Before the start of the 2025 F3 season, Nikola Tsolov had his eyes on the drivers’ crown. The Bulgarian had just finished his second campaign in the series with ART Grand Prix, taking three wins and further developing as a driver. Joining Campos, one of the championship’s most competitive teams in recent seasons and the outfit that led him to the 2022 Spanish F4 crown, was the step he needed to challenge for the title.

After a disappointing start in Melbourne, where he scored just three points, the Red Bull junior was quick to turn things around, scoring his first win of the season in the following sprint in Sakhir before taking fifth in the feature. Another podium finish in Imola, once again on Saturday, proved he could fight with the very best.

His best performance of the year came around the streets of Monte Carlo, where Tsolov scored his maiden pole position on a circuit where track position means everything. It was smooth sailing for the Bulgarian on Sunday, as he took a record-breaking fifth career F3 win and reduced his gap to the top of the drivers’ standings to just 16 points.

Two podiums in the next three races, plus an additional pole for the feature race in Spielberg, put Tsolov in the prime position to fight against Câmara. He originally dominated the race to take yet another victory and cut the Brazilian’s lead to a single point, but he was later disqualified because his car’s plank was in breach of the technical regulations.

That proved to be a devastating blow to the championship hopes of Tsolov, who scored points in just three of the following seven races. Thanks to a decisive performance in Monza, where he finished second in the feature, he not only secured second in the drivers’ standings but also helped Campos take home the teams’ crown.

In 2026, Tsolov will stay with Campos Racing at the next step on the ladder in F2. He already had the chance to make his debut in the series, racing in the last two rounds of the 2025 season with the Spanish outfit. He claimed his maiden podium in the sprint at Abu Dhabi, where he finished third.

1) Rafael Câmara (P1, 166 points)

Rafael Câmara was undoubtedly the best driver of the 2025 Formula 3 season, though this does not come as a surprise given the impressive résumé the Brazilian brought to the table. The Scuderia Ferrari junior was the reigning FR Europe champion prior to joining F3 in 2025 with Trident, the team whose drivers had won the last two drivers’ titles.

The now 20-year-old set the tone for his season straight away in Melbourne, where he took his maiden pole and feature race win on his first attempt. He followed that up with another dominant victory on Sunday, this time in Sakhir, before taking third in the feature at Imola during round three.

Curiously, however, he failed to score points in any of the first three sprints. That, plus two consecutive retirements between the Monaco feature race and the sprint in Barcelona, left him vulnerable to the charge brought primarily by Tsolov and Tramnitz. But he wiped the floor with his opposition at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Sunday, taking home his third feature victory from pole and capping it off with the fastest lap of the race.

Despite another scoreless feature race – this time in Silverstone – he nursed his lead in the championship until the penultimate round in Budapest, where a fourth feature race win, this time in tricky weather conditions, granted him the drivers’ title. By the end of the season, he won it all with a massive 42-point gap over Tsolov, his nearest rival.

In 2026, Câmara will step up to F2 with Invicta, following the same path that the two previous F3 drivers’ champions before him – Gabriel Bortoleto and Leonardo Fornaroli – had taken. Can he emulate them and win the F2 crown on his first attempt too?

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency