Campos Racing’s Ugo Ugochukwu overhauled teammate Théophile Naël to take his first Formula 3 race win Sunday in Melbourne, finishing ahead of rookie drivers Freddie Slater and Taito Kato as penalties shuffled the order. Feeder Series spoke to Ugochukwu and Slater about how they navigated close racing against their teammates in the race.

By Tori Turner

At the start, Naël, who took pole position on Friday, remained in first after Turn 1, whilst Campos teammate Ugochukwu lost out to Slater, who took second position around the outside. The Briton was more than a second behind Naël on lap two, however, and could not activate DRS. Ugochukwu was close enough to do so, however, and he quickly fought back and retook the position before Turn 9. 

From there, he began the hunt for first place. By the start of lap four, he had the opportunity to take the lead and passed Naël with ease entering Turn 9. He set the fastest lap in the process as he built a gap of 0.4 seconds. 

“You need to be a bit careful, but it’s also the same as any other driver on the grid,” Ugochukwu told Feeder Series in the post-race press conference about racing his teammate for the lead. “Obviously, you don’t want to crash because you’re not going to score any points, so that goes the same when I’m racing everybody. 

“We had a little talk before the race, starting P1 and P2, be smart and work with each other as much as possible. That worked pretty well. I managed to have a pretty clean move, and after that we had a steady gap to each other, so it all went pretty smoothly.” 

Ugochukwu eked out a one-second gap over Naël in the laps after his overtake. At the end of lap eight, Brando Badoer spun at the final corner from sixth, though he remained in the race and continued in 11th. Behind him, Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi was not so fortunate, crashing into the barriers at Turn 12 and bringing out the safety car for three laps.

When racing resumed at the start of lap 12, Ugochukwu maintained his lead over Naël and Slater. Maciej Gładysz came under threat from Nicola Lacorte on the restart, but the Italian did not make the overtake until Turn 9 on lap 13, once DRS was enabled again. Lacorte then overtook Slater at Turn 11 as he sought his first-ever points and DAMS’ first F3 podium.

Slater attempted to fight back at the same spot on lap 16, but a DRS train had formed behind him, forcing him to defend against Gładysz. The Polish driver locked up and lost a position to Noah Strømsted around the outside, with his ART Grand Prix teammate Kato and sprint race winner Bruno Del Pino making up two more places on Gładysz at the start of lap 17.

Slater regained third from Lacorte that lap at Turn 9. Strømsted attempted to follow Slater through at Turn 11 but made contact with Lacorte at the exit of the corner. The DAMS driver sustained minor front wing damage and dropped to seventh. Strømsted kept his position but received a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision, which put paid to the intra-team battle for third that seemed to be developing between the two Tridents.

“I wouldn’t quite like crashing into my teammate and going back to Giacomo [Ricci, team manager] and the team after,” Slater told Feeder Series about his battle with Strømsted. “It doesn’t benefit me. We knew we had to be careful with each other. We got a radio message anyway to be clean. At the end of the day, we’re trying to get the most amount of points for our team. Of course, we’re trying to beat each other as well, but we try to do that respectfully and bring all three cars home at the end of the day.”

There was a further twist in the race for the podium positions, however. Polesitter Naël came under investigation on lap 15 for moving before the start signal and earned a five-second penalty the next lap. Lacorte was investigated on lap 18 and swiftly handed the same penalty, jeopardising his chance of points.

Naël now had to push to keep his podium, but he was losing around a second a lap to Ugochukwu. By lap 20 of 23, Slater had caught him and regained second place on track by passing Naël around the outside at Turn 9.

Moments later, a second safety car was called for the stricken car of Michael Shin at Turn 7. The Korean driver smacked the barriers at Turn 5 while avoiding the slow car of Matteo De Palo, who had spun at the previous corner following contact with Badoer.

The race finished with three laps under the safety car, extinguishing Naël’s hopes of points and enshrining Ugochukwu’s maiden victory in F3 at the start of his sophomore season. Rookie Slater joined him on the podium, his second such appearance after he claimed his first on his debut in Bahrain last year.

Fellow rookie Kato delivered an impressive performance from seventh on the grid to secure his first F3 podium. Kato lost two positions through the opening sector but regained eighth from Strømsted on the first lap with a bold move around the outside of Turn 1. He and Strømsted then passed Mattia Colnaghi on lap six and swapped places again the next lap. From there, the Japanese driver gained two places from Badoer’s and Lacorte’s incidents and two more after Naël and Strømsted’s penalties were applied to inherit third.

Having started 11th, Del Pino, like Kato, quietly climbed up the order, even setting the fastest lap on lap five. He was just shy of taking consecutive podiums in Melbourne with fourth place, while Gładysz came home fifth ahead of Enzo Deligny in sixth.

Brad Benavides, who started all the way back in 18th, made up eight positions on track and three from penalties to finish seventh, with Pedro Clerot similarly finishing eighth after starting 17th. Jin Nakamura scored his first F3 points in ninth, whilst Colnaghi was able to clinch the final points-paying position despite seeming to struggle for pace late on.

Naël’s penalty ultimately put him 12th. Lacorte crossed the line ninth but fell to 19th, with his sparring partner Strømsted tumbling from fourth to 24th.

Before the race began, Prema Racing confirmed that Louis Sharp and James Wharton would not take part in the feature race after their heavy crash during Saturday’s sprint race. In an Instagram post, Wharton said that his car had been rebuilt by Prema overnight but he had been advised to focus on his recovery following medical checks on Sunday morning. The sole remaining Prema car of José Garfias finished 25th and last, having sustained a puncture on the opening lap before pitting twice during the race.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency