A flurry of post-race penalties rejigged the order in the Formula 3 feature race at Silverstone, with the original top three finishers of Matteo De Palo, Théophile Naël and Ernesto Rivera all affected and Maciej Gładysz promoted to a shock win ahead of Freddie Slater and Ugo Ugochukwu. Feeder Series breaks down a turbulent feature race and the bizarre series of events that followed it.

By Daniele Spadi and Michael McClure

It looked to be the moment that Matteo De Palo’s disastrous rookie F3 season had finally turned around. After 21 laps, he had taken a much-needed feature race victory at Silverstone with the defensive lap of a lifetime at the end to keep 2025 FRegional Europe title rival Freddie Slater behind. It was the metaphoric statement that he had been down but never truly out.

“It feels more like confirmation for me,” he told Feeder Series, “that Matteo is still here and that it didn’t change anything from last year.

“For sure it’s the most special [win] of my career, because of course it’s in F3, but also for this big relief that I had. I think these have been the most difficult four months in my life, but after today I feel much, much better.”

When he spoke to Feeder Series in the post-race press conference 30 minutes after taking the win, his first in F3, De Palo could still barely believe what happened. Yet what transpired in subsequent hours was yet more bizarre and unexpected. 

Two and a half hours after the race finish, a report from the F3 technical delegate revealed that De Palo’s diffuser had been found to be below the minimum height by 3 mm on the right side and 1 mm on the left. Suddenly, De Palo went from soaking in the joy of his first win to facing the prospect of relinquishing his winner’s trophy and the 25 points that came with it. A slam-dunk penalty awaited, one almost certain to end any chance of fighting for a second title on the bounce.

Its arrival five hours later, after even the F1 race had ended, delivered a crushing blow to a driver whose only other points finish this year, a fourth place in the previous day’s sprint race, was already marred by losing a podium at the final corner. Trident contended that two incidents of front-to-rear contact between Slater and De Palo on the final lap had caused the diffuser plates to be deformed or bent, but the stewards deemed that the contact could not be determined as the sole cause for the non-compliant component.

De Palo’s penalty was just one of several that shook up the finishing order in a race that began and ended under unusual circumstances. Before the start, a spillage on the exit of the final corner forced race direction to add a second formation lap to ensure the track was suitable for racing, trimming the race length from 22 to 21 laps.

When the lights finally went out, Théophile Naël enjoyed a great getaway from second, challenging Freddie Slater on the run to Turn 1. The home hero was able to defend around the outside, the two almost making contact but making it through unscathed. Louis Sharp and De Palo maintained third and fourth place.

Behind them, Campos Racing’s Ernesto Rivera lost grip exiting Brooklands and dipped two wheels into the grass, thus gifting fifth to fellow Red Bull junior Fionn McLaughlin. Championship leader and dominant sprint race winner Ugo Ugochukwu was also on the move, gaining two spots on the opening lap on his way to 10th.

On lap two, De Palo took third from Sharp at Vale as he began his quest to avenge the podium lost to Naël on the final corner of the final lap on Saturday.

De Palo seemed to have electric pace in the first section of the race. The Italian wasted no time and attacked the Frenchman for second on lap three on the Hangar Straight before doing the same to his teammate Slater the next time around.

After moving into first, however, he was unable to create a gap over his teammate, as everyone from first down to 25th remained under a second behind the car in front by the end of lap six.

Slater went on the attack the next time around, overtaking De Palo at the same section of the circuit where he had previously lost the lead. Behind them, a stellar move on Rivera around the outside of Vale promoted Maciej Gładysz to sixth, though the Mexican then replicated the move on the Pole a lap later to restore the order from before.

Rivera wasn’t done yet, going on the attack on McLaughlin and taking fifth away from the Irishman at Stowe on lap nine. Next in line was Gładysz, who again went around the outside at Vale to take sixth as McLaughlin went deep on exit.

The Hitech driver lost a spot to Strømsted at Club and two more spots to James Wharton and Ugochukwu into Brooklands. The American then rose to eighth a lap later after overtaking James Wharton at The Loop.

The action kicked off at the end of lap 12 once again. De Palo shaped for a move on Slater and made it through with a dive down the inside at Vale; simultaneously, Sharp went for a pass around the outside of Naël but failed to make it stick. As a result, he got a bad exit out of the final corner, which shuffled him down to sixth into Turn 1. Strømsted, Wharton and Ugochukwu were all through by the time they reached Brooklands.

By the end of lap 14, De Palo and Slater were then able to create a one-second gap over Naël, who thus lost the possibility of using DRS to attack the Trident pair and defend effectively from his teammate Rivera.

A pivotal moment in the race came on lap 18, as Ricardo Escotto, substituting for the injured Brad Benavides, came to a halt after hitting the back of Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi into Village.

The marshals’ quick work to recover the Mexican’s stranded AIX set up a last-lap showdown. De Palo, though, was unable to shake off Slater, and things inevitably got tense between the Trident teammates. The pair first touched at the Loop, Slater’s front wing glancing the back of De Palo’s car, and when the Italian was forced to defend the position into Brooklands, he locked up and ran deep, compromising his line.

As Slater tried the cutback on the exit of Luffield, the two teammates made front-to-rear contact again. The Briton was slowed but undeterred as he went to the outside towards Copse, and as De Palo squeezed him to the far left of the track, the two made contact for a third time, which unsettled Slater and sent him wide at Copse. He dropped outside the podium places, with Campos’ Naël and Rivera taking advantage.

The Frenchman, who had been the prime spectator of the monumental fight between the two Trident teammates, then went on the attack at Vale, reenacting the fight that had given him a podium place at De Palo’s expense in yesterday’s sprint.

This time, the Italian made sure not to repeat Saturday’s mistake despite a big lock-up at the entry of Vale, successfully protecting the inside line at the exit. From there he only had to accelerate forward to earn not just his maiden F3 podium but his first win in the series too, provisionally at least. The celebrations, of course, were premature, and not just because a driver was missing from the podium.

Naël was second at the finish – but only for a few seconds. Just after crossing the line, he received a 10-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage when fighting for third against Sharp on lap 12. This dropped him to 15th and outside of the points-paying positions.

Rivera thus inherited second, due to be his best feature race result of the season, while also setting the fastest lap of the race. But he too received a five-second penalty for weaving on the Hangar Straight just before the final safety car period, dropping him from second to 11th. That became 10th with De Palo’s disqualification, ensuring that he kept his fastest lap point. Wharton and Alessandro Giusti, who were initially fourth and 10th respectively, earned the same penalty and dropped to 11th and 13th after De Palo’s disqualification.

All this meant that Gładysz, who had started eighth and never run higher than fourth on track, was now the race winner, though he nearly missed the podium. The call to penalise Naël immediately after the flag meant that the ART Grand Prix driver reportedly pulled into the support pit lane between Woodcote and Copse before being rushed to the F1 pit lane, where he arrived just as the podium ceremony got underway. With Rivera penalised and De Palo disqualified, the Polish rookie’s race to the podium was in fact a literal and metaphorical sprint for victory. His final winning margin after penalties was 0.908s.

With Wharton taken out of the podium slots, Slater, who once had to settle for fifth after the intense fight with his teammate, was now back in the runner-up spot in which he had spent most of the race, while Ugochukwu moved up from sixth to third and retained the championship lead by 18 points over the Briton.

After fighting for the podium in the first half of the race, Sharp dropped to seventh on track but ended up fourth. Noah Strømsted and Kanato Le were fifth and sixth, with the Dane also jumping up to fourth in the standings, only three points behind Naël. Giusti’s penalty put Yevan David, Hiyu Yamakoshi, and Pedro Clerot all into the points ahead of Rivera in 10th.

Though the loss of De Palo’s race win put a damper on their day, Trident still got to enjoy a minor victory in the teams’ standings. Thanks to a triple score yesterday and top-five results for Slater and Strømsted today, The Italian team overtook Van Amersfoort Racing for second in the teams’ standings while also cutting the gap to leaders Campos Racing from 53 to 42 points.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency