Théophile Naël took his second career Formula 3 victory in Budapest from sixth on the grid, profiting from a multi-car crash on the opening lap and an overtake on Kanato Le on lap nine to score Campos Racing’s fifth win of 2026. After the race, Feeder Series spoke to the top three finishers and AIX Racing’s Fernando Barrichello about how the race unfolded.

By Michael McClure and Daniele Spadi

When the race began under sunny skies, a phenomenal getaway from Gerrard Xie vaulted him from third into first on the run down to Turn 1. However, the Chinese driver went deep into the opening corner of the race, and polesitter Le retook the lead as Naëal slotted into second, the Frenchman enjoying a terrific start from sixth.

As the pack raced towards Turn 2, Hitech’s Jin Nakamura lined up a move on Xie for third, but as he looked to switch to the outside line, he locked up and hit the back of the DAMS driver. Now out of control, his Hitech veered to the right, collecting front-row starter Maciej Gładysz in the process.

The Pole was out of the race instantly, kicking the fence in anger as he re-entered the support paddock a half-hour earlier than planned. Nakamura attempted to rejoin the race but had sustained too much front-end damage to do so, while Xie reported a puncture to his right rear tyre but was able to continue after a trip to the pits.

A safety car intervention was therefore inevitable, neutralising the race until the end of lap three. The restart on lap four was markedly more tame, with fourth-placed Mattia Colnaghi – who had started 10th – the only frontrunner to shape for an overtake on Rivera into Turn 1.

Behind them, Ugo Ugochukwu in seventh swarmed all over the back of Nicola Lacorte on subsequent laps, even touching wheels with the DAMS driver as they rounded Turn 6 on the sixth lap. The Italian, however, held on until the start of lap seven, when his American counterpart finally breezed past down the inside of Turn 1 and gained a critical point for his championship ambitions. Ugochukwu then set himself up to earn another the following lap with a similar move down the inside of Brando Badoer.

By the end of the eighth lap, Naël had started to put pressure on Le half a second up the road. It didn’t take long for the Frenchman to snatch it away with a late lunge down the inside of Turn 1, and he swiftly opened up a half-second gap of his own.

But the race’s midpoint was also the end of Campos’ charge forward. Naël struggled to break free of Le’s DRS range, only achieving the feat by the end of lap 15, while Ugochukwu began to slide backwards and into the clutches of former Prema teammate Badoer.

Matters then worsened for Ugochukwu as he earned a five-second penalty for leaving the track exiting Turn 3 on the opening lap and gaining an advantage by passing Taponen into Turn 4. He lost about that much time as well on track, sinking from three seconds behind Naël at the end of lap 10 to 7.2 seconds behind by the end of lap 15.

Badoer finally made the move into Turn 1 on lap 16, but the Rodin Motorsport driver wasn’t the only one who got a piece of Ugochukwu. Lacorte also dove down the inside but tapped the American’s right-rear tyre, the impact jolting his car onto the grass on the inside. His momentum snapped, the DAMS driver lost a position to Taponen, who then went around the outside of Ugochukwu into Turn 2 on lap 17.

Unfortunately for Ugochukwu, his decline wasn’t quite finished yet. He lost one spot to Lacorte down the start-finish straight and, struggling to keep his car under control under braking, ceded another to James Wharton in Turn 1. Barrichello likewise got past Slater on the inside of Turn 1 before sweeping around the outside of Ugochukwu into Turn 2.

By that point, any further passes, however symbolic they may have been for the championship, would have had little impact on the result. Slater kept close to Ugochukwu’s rear through the second sector, but the American’s penalty would have lifted him to 10th regardless.

Out front, however, Naël found an extra gear in the final laps. Though Le received an instruction to push and close the gap, the Frenchman only extended his advantage to finish 2.7s in front. This marks his second race win this season after he dominated the Barcelona feature race, and he gained 10 points on Ugochukwu to sit 29 behind entering the feature race.

Despite another impressive performance, Naël said there was still room to improve.

“We still have some potential to find in the setup for tomorrow, so that’s a good sign,” Naël told Feeder Series in the post-race press conference minutes after winning.

“Starting from P6, 7, and 8, the Campos cars, the main point would be to have a clean start, all of us, to not disrupt and to not have contact – to stay on track and to push each other to the top for the end of the race and maximise points.”

Behind him, Le took his first podium in the series, with Rivera, who pursued him in the closing laps, notching his third. The pair said they expected the high tyre degradation they experienced in the sprint to recur in the feature race, which will cover 24 laps as opposed to the 19 run today.

“Today we had one little safety car at the beginning, and the race is shorter,” Rivera added. “Tomorrow for sure the colder track temps will help, but still, it will be a very tough race with five more laps. We need to see how can we improve from my side and the car’s side as well.”

Colnaghi’s fourth place matched his result last time out in the Spa feature race, with Badoer fifth and Taponen sixth with the fastest lap, a 1:36.516 on the final tour. Lacorte recorded his best career finish in seventh as Wharton came home eighth, just behind two of his Prema teammates in Italian F4 in 2023.

Having qualified a career-best 17th, Barrichello passed six cars on the opening lap and the top two in the championship on the penultimate one to finish ninth. With that, he scored his first two F3 points – the first step to ameliorate what he described as ‘a really tough season’.

“We knew we could fight for more yesterday. We had a bit more in the pocket. We ended up going slightly too much oversteer towards the end,” the AIX Racing driver told Feeder Series in the paddock after the race. “As a team we’ve been struggling to actually evolve in the right direction, so it’s been super, super tough, but it’s just really nice to give these guys a good result. I feel like they really deserve it.”

“We were able to really maximise [our tyre management],” he added. “We knew that Hungary was going to be all about tyres, so I was saving from the beginning already, trying to really manage them to have them alive in the end. I feel like that was maybe the differential to the other guys in the last laps.”

Slater inherited 10th position after Ugochukwu’s penalty, which dropped the American to 17th. The pair are now level on 104 points at the top of the drivers’ standings, though Ugochukwu holds the advantage with two victories to Slater’s zero.

Campos now have 243 points in the teams’ championship, extending their advantage over Trident to 73.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency