Ernesto Rivera showcased brilliant racecraft on his way to his first Formula 3 victory in the sprint race at the Red Bull Ring, moving into the lead on lap 14 of 21 after a decisive duel with James Wharton. After a fantastic last-lap battle of their own, Pedro Clerot and Jin Nakamura joined him on the podium and spoke to Feeder Series after the race after their efforts.

By Daniele Spadi

James Wharton and Ernesto Rivera lined up on the front row of the sprint, with the Australian looking to replicate his efforts from last year when he converted sprint pole to victory on this circuit.

When the lights went out, Wharton had a terrific getaway, enabling him to keep the lead. Behind them, trouble hit Trident teammates Noah Strømsted and Freddie Slater at the exit of Turn 1. As the two went side by side, the former drifted wide towards the exit kerb, hitting the latter in front of him and destroying his right-rear suspension. Slater spun across the track and retired on the spot, with the safety car coming out on track.

Right before the safety car intervention, Pedro Clerot tried to overtake Rivera for second, running wide at Turn 3 and losing third place to Jin Nakamura in the process. In the middle of the pack, Hiyu Yamakoshi enjoyed a brilliant start to jump from 12th all the way up to seventh.

The safety car came in at the end of lap three, and Wharton retained the lead ahead of Rivera and Nakamura. Two laps later, Taito Kato went up the inside of Yamakoshi to take seventh into Turn 4, with Alessandro Giusti lining up an opportunistic move around the outside of the following corner to drop the Japanese driver to ninth.

Out in front, Rivera looked to have the pace to line up an attack on Wharton, though the virtual safety car paused that fight on lap six. Fionn McLaughlin had gone  deep into Turn 3 and, as he rejoined the racing line, hit the back of Enzo Deligny’s car, losing his front win.

A lap later, green-flag racing resumed, and Wharton had better reflexes at the restart, growing his lead to over a second and thereby putting Rivera outside of DRS range. The Mexican, however, looked to have the pace over the Australian and caught up to the back of him by lap 11, when he went on the attack.

The Mexican tried to stick his nose up the inside of Turn 3 but ended up hitting the back of Wharton’s car. Luckily, both drivers escaped the collision with no visible damage. The Campos Racing driver then attacked relentlessly, but Wharton responded with gutsy defensive moves that enabled him to keep the lead.

On lap 14, it was finally Rivera’s time. The Red Bull junior had a great exit from the Turn 3 hairpin and made the move stick around the outside into the following corner. With that, he took a lead he would never relinquish.

Behind them, the fight for third also intensified. On lap 12, Clerot went around the outside of Nakamura into Turn 6, but the Hitech driver was able to keep third. The Brazilian tried a move once again four laps later, to no avail.

“It was really difficult to overtake,” Clerot explained to Feeder Series in the post-race press conference. “I felt like I had the opportunity to overtake Jin a few times, but it was always close. I had a few opportunities into Turn 4, which was really close a few times, but Jin defended really well.”

On the penultimate lap, Wharton made a small yet critical mistake, running wide on the exit of Turn 6 and dipping two wheels into the gravel. This made him lose enough time to drop outside of DRS range from Rivera, making him vulnerable to Nakamura’s and Clerot’s attacks.

Ultimately, it was the latter who had the upper hand thanks to two passes on the outside – on Nakamura into Turn 3 and on Wharton on the following straight. Heading into Turn 4, Nakamura also got the better of Wharton, who dropped out of the podium places for the first time in the race with just seven corners to go.

“ I got a bit lucky in the last lap,” Clerot said. “I managed to get quite close to Jin, and James didn’t have DRS because Ernesto had a gap. I made the most out of it. I had nothing to lose, essentially.

“I know that if I managed to make it work, at least I could get Jin and then go on the podium, which was my goal starting from P3. In the end, we managed to get two positions in one go, which was quite a cool move, and it’s not really easy to make it around the outside, especially going into Turn 3.”

Meanwhile, Rivera checked out in front, taking not just his maiden F3 podium but his first win in the series too. The Campos Racing driver, who had missed the first round of the season because of injury and had not previously finished a sprint race this season, went back to winning ways for the first time since the 2025 Eurocup-3 round in Spa-Francorchamps last September. He is also the sixth Red Bull junior to take victory on this circuit in F3 and the first to do so in four years.

Clerot crossed the finish line in second, thus taking his best result in the series, though he felt there could have been more with a cleaner race.

“I was stuck behind a train basically the whole race, and unfortunately we couldn’t really maximise with the DRS train,” the Brazilian said.

“I’m just happy. It was a good battle in the whole race. I think if the race had no safety cars, I probably had a little bit more of an advantage, but that was not the case, and I think we played it well with what we had.”

Despite losing the fight against Clerot, Nakamura was still able to finish third, becoming the third Japanese driver this season to score a podium after Kato and Yamakoshi.

“Pedro had very good pace,” Nakamura said when reflecting on his fight with the Brazilian.“I know that Pedro has very good skills to overtake the car in front. It was actually quite hard for me in the middle of the race. It’s [a shame] that I was overtaken by him, but it’s part of the race, and I managed to get to the podium. I also have a new set of tyres for tomorrow, so our pace will be fine. We got very good confidence from this race.”

Wharton was gutted not to finish on the podium after leading the sprint for 14 laps as he settled for fourth. Strømsted finished fifth after colliding with his teammate, an incident for which the stewards opted not to penalise anyone.

Kanato Le crossed the line sixth for what was due to be his best ever finish in the championship, but both that and his fastest lap point were stripped of him after his car was found to be underweight post-race. An ART Grand Prix team representative said in the hearing that the car experienced a significant drop in water pressure mid-race after it was struck by gravel and that this caused its cooling system to lose liquid.

Sixth therefore belonged to third-place qualifier Tuukka Taponen, who was beside Strømsted and Slater when they collided at the first corner. The Finnish driver told Feeder Series that from his perspective, Strømsted appeared to have a moment of oversteer after both drivers braked late into the corner.

“Starting P3 tomorrow, we have to do something bigger,” Taponen continued. “It’s not adjusting a little. We need to try something bigger to improve that.”

Kato took seventh in front of Yamakoshi and Ugo Ugochukwu, with Bruno Del Pino in 10th keeping his perfect points-scoring record in 2026 alive because of Le’s penalty. Yamakoshi and Ugochukwu will start on the front row for tomorrow’s feature race at 8:40 local, with the Japanese driver lining up first in an F3 race for the very first time on a Sunday.

With Le’s disqualification, the fastest lap point will go to Clerot, who set a 1:23.642 on the 10th lap of a race. The overall fastest lap was set by Prema Racing’s Louis Sharp in 14th.

Editor’s note, 27 June 2026, 16:10 CEST: This article was updated after publication to reflect the disqualification of Kanato Le, who originally finished sixth.

Additional reporting by August Bamford

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency