Formula 3 headed to the Hungaroring for the seventh round of the 2026 season, delivering crucial moments in the championship battle. There was a change in the lead for the first time since the opening round in Melbourne and a maiden F3 win, both courtesy of Freddie Slater. Feeder Series talks you through four points we learned in Budapest.

By Daniele Spadi and Tori Turner

Though he topped Friday’s practice session and led much of qualifying, Slater was unable to take his third consecutive pole position of the season, missing out by 0.040s to Tuukka Taponen. In Saturday’s sprint, Théophile Naël won his second race of the 2026 season, finishing ahead of first-time podium finisher Kanato Le and Campos Racing’s Ernesto Rivera. The race also saw Slater draw level on championship points with title rival Ugo Ugochukwu.

On Sunday, Slater triumphed in a safety car–heavy race to take his first win of the season and the fastest lap. His victory ensured he took the championship lead by eight points over Ugochukwu, who finished second. Rodin Motorsport’s Brando Badoer scored his fourth podium of the season in third.

• Pre-weekend roundtable: ART F3 rookie Gładysz: ‘My qualifying needs to be better’
• Qualifying report and quotes: Taponen stars in Budapest qualifying to take MP’s first F3 pole since 2022
• Sprint race report and quotes: Naël takes Budapest F3 sprint win as Slater ties Ugochukwu atop standings
• Feature race report and quotes: Slater defeats Ugochukwu in Hungary feature to take first F3 win, points lead

1. Joy at last for Slater

Coming into round seven of the season, Freddie Slater was deep into the championship fight – a single point behind Ugo Ugochukwu – but was yet to take his maiden F3 victory.

Sure, Leonardo Fornaroli showed back in 2024 that wins were not mandatory to take the title. But with Slater narrowly missing out in the past three feature races, expectations were high in Budapest.

And finally, Slater delivered.

Starting from second on the feature race grid, the Briton was eager to take the lead right from the get-go, attacking polesitter Tuukka Taponen on the opening lap. Contact between the two on the run to Turn 12 earned Slater a damaged front wing, and with his rival forced to pit because of a puncture, he was gifted the lead.

Despite the reduction in aerodynamic grip due to the damage he had picked up, Slater was capable of fending off the attacks of none other than Ugochukwu, finally proving that he had learned from the duels he had lost earlier this season. This was not just Slater’s maiden F3 win but a season-defining drive when he needed one the most.

2. Colnaghi and Taponen drive MP Motorsport’s resurgence

Mattia Colnaghi did not have the best start to his rookie F3 season. The Argentine had secured a single point on his debut in Melbourne but since then had failed to finish in the top 10 up until round six in Spa-Francorchamps, where he finally showcased his potential, claiming two back-to-back fourth places in the two races.

At the Hungaroring – a track where he had never raced before – Colnaghi continued to impress. After qualifying in third place, he rose from 10th to fourth in the opening lap of the sprint thanks to an electric start and a three-car crash in front of him. He was unable to make up further ground and finished just outside the podium in fourth.

Though he failed to convert a second-row start into a podium finish on Sunday, he once again took fourth, continuing a curious streak of four consecutive fourth-place finishes. 

Evidently, Colnaghi seems much more at ease with the F3 car. This goes hand in hand with an upturn in MP Motorsport’s pace overall, highlighted by the team’s first pole position in almost four years. 

Taponen was the driver who delivered it, and he rose from 12th to sixth in the sprint race, setting the fastest lap in the process.On Sunday, the contact with Slater on the opening lap resulted in a punctured rear-right tyre. Though Taponen mitigated the damage by pitting under safety car conditions, he was not able to move any higher than sixth on track, only gaining fifth place when Théophile Naël received penalties for defending too aggressively against him.

3. Yamakoshi’s superb drive to points

Hiyu Yamakoshi celebrated a second-place finish in Belgium, but his weekend in Budapest was shaping up to be a write-off before Sunday’s feature race. The Van Amersfoort Racing driver finished qualifying at the bottom of the order. Adding insult to injury, he was disqualified after the session because his car had been modified under parc fermé conditions, though the sanction did not change his grid position. 

The 19 laps of Saturday’s sprint race offered little consolation as he only managed to finish 26th. Everything fell into place on Sunday, however, when he made up a total of 18 positions on track plus one thanks to an immediate post-race penalty.

“I didn’t expect it,” Yamakoshi told Feeder Series in the paddock after the feature race. “Yesterday and this weekend we were down [the order] with no pace at all and we had an issue in qualifying. Everything wasn’t great, and I really didn’t expect this good result.

“In the end, we went through the path of everybody, and then to come P11 is a really good feeling, especially in Budapest, where it is really difficult to overtake. We showed the pace that we have as a baseline, and I showed I can fight through the field.”

Really, all the Japanese driver needed was patience. He moved up to 10th when Naël received a post-race penalty that dropped him out of the points-paying positions.. With that came the reward of a single point – perhaps the most hard-fought of his entire rookie season and a crucial one for his drivers’ standings placement. With two rounds remaining, he is now just one point away from sixth-placed Noah Strømsted.

4. What has happened to Bruno Del Pino?

If Yamakoshi’s heroics were just the latest in a series of great drives, the other side of the Van Amersfoort Racing garage tells a diametrically different story.

Bruno Del Pino emerged early on as one of the championship contenders – quite surprisingly considering he placed only 23rd last year. The Spaniard took his maiden win in the series in the opening sprint race of the season in Melbourne before giving continuity to his form by scoring points in the next six races as well.

A difficult weekend at the Red Bull Ring saw him finish the sprint down in 10th, losing him some ground in the championship. From that point onward, however, he did not score a single point. Out of contention altogether in Silverstone; close, but not close enough, in Spa; and once again off the pace at the Hungaroring.

A difficult qualifying in which he broke his front wing when he struck a Straight Mode marker board left him down in 24th, albeit just six tenths off Slater. Though he made up ground in both races, he was unable to score points once again. He finished 18th in the sprint and 14th in the feature, being passed by teammate Yamakoshi on the opening lap.

What was once a seven-race streak of top-10 finishes is now an equally long series of scoreless races. The 20-year-old has slipped to ninth in the drivers’ standings – his results now making him look like a shadow of the quick and consistent driver he showed he could be at the start of the year.

Results and standings after round 7 at Hungaroring

Results	P1	P2	P3
Qualifying	Tuukka Taponen, 1:33.411	Freddie Slater, +0.040s	Mattia Colnaghi, +0.064s
Sprint race (19 laps)	Théophile Naël, 32:33.347	Kanato Le, +2.715s	Ernesto Rivera, +3.839s
Feature race (24 laps)	Freddie Slater, 43:51.807	Ugo Ugochukwu, +1.484s	Brando Badoer, +3.098s

Standings	Drivers	Teams
P1	Freddie Slater, 130	Campos Racing, 269
P2	Ugo Ugochukwu, 122	Trident, 196
P3	Théophile Naël, 75	Van Amersfoort Racing, 132
P4	Ernesto Rivera, 72	Rodin Motorsport, 121
P5	Brando Badoer, 71	ART Grand Prix, 119
P6	Noah Strømsted, 59	MP Motorsport, 102
P7	Hiyu Yamakoshi, 55	Prema Racing, 50
P8	Maciej Gładysz, 54	Hitech, 41
P9	Bruno Del Pino, 49	DAMS, 26
P10	Pedro Clerot, 48	AIX Racing, 23

Read our takeaways from the previous round here.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency