Formula 3 staged a unique double qualifying session at the season-ending Madrid round, which will feature a second feature race ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato claimed the first pole position on offer, finishing ahead of Pedro Clerot and Tuukka Taponen to earn pole for Saturday’s feature race. Taponen finished first in the second session, Ugo Ugochukwu and Clerot to take pole for the second feature race. Feeder Series spoke to the top finishers about the physical demands of qualifying in an extended session.

By Tori Turner

After Formula 2’s qualifying session ended with no fewer than five cars crashed, the F3 grid delivered a considerably cleaner affair, with nary a red flag across the two 20-minute sessions to set the grids for this weekend’s two feature races.

The first session threw up the biggest upset for the championship, with leader Freddie Slater of Trident experiencing apparent suspension issues that limited him to 17th in the session. Title rival Ugo Ugochukwu qualified fourth behind the top three of polesitter Taito Kato, Pedro Clerot and Tuukka Taponen.

The Finnish driver then went even faster in qualifying two to lead the way from Ugochukwu, whose front-row start for Sunday’s feature race gives him the edge over Slater for all three contests. Clerot put his car third despite a late crash as Slater recovered to eighth.

“It’s been a super tough year for me,” MP Motorsport’s Taponen told Feeder Series. “Our target this season was to fight for the championship, but with how the season started, we were really struggling, but we managed to improve. The second half of the season has been super strong but at the same time super unlucky with some punctures in the last two weekends. I’m super happy to finally be able to show what I’m capable of and fight for wins.”

The format

The Madring brought a new qualifying format that saw the drivers compete in two consecutive sessions to set the grid for the three races this weekend. That meant the 28 drivers were in the cars for almost an hour at one of the most physical tracks on the calendar.

“It reminds us of the F4 days and karting days where you drive a bit a more and you’re in the car for a bit longer,” Clerot told Feeder Series. “It’s quite hot here in Madrid, and it makes everything a little bit harder and a bit more physical. This track is also a bit more physical than any other track we had this season. It wasn’t an issue on my side, but it makes things a bit more interesting.”

The two sessions, which consisted of 20 minutes each, were 10 minutes longer than the usual format of 30 minutes in total, for a combined 40 minutes of running. Taponen told Feeder Series that with such a format, ‘the time is going quite quick because you are driving almost all the time’

“It makes it more interesting, 10 minutes more in qualifying,” Kato said. “I’m also thankful that there’s not a lot of tyre degradation on this track, so we could do four push [laps] a lot. Normally in Formula 3, it’s always one push and then finish, but this track it’s pushing a lot. There was a good opportunity to put it all together in the lap and getting confident lap by lap. Especially in a street circuit, you have to be on the edge and just cross the wall. That is helping for the 10 minutes more in qualifying.”

Qualifying 1

The majority of the grid headed out onto the track at the beginning of the session and fought for crucial track position during the two build laps that followed. 

Noah Strømsted and Kanato Le made contact at Turn 5, causing the Trident driver’s sidepod to be stripped back.

Kato delivered the first flying lap of the two sessions with a 1:51.127, which shot him to the top for the first runs. No driver was able to beat him. Mattia Colnaghi initially took second, 0.897s behind before Enzo Deligny, Bruno Del Pino and Alex Powell beat him. 

Ugo Ugochukwu was eighth after his first flying lap, 1.031s back from Kato, while fellow championship contender Freddie Slater was down in 13th. Slater jumped up to third on his next flying lap with a 1:51.215, but Ugochukwu beat him by 0.135s and moved ahead as the times continued to tumble.

Then, with 7:57 remaining, Pedro Clerot skyrocketed to the top of the timing tower with a 1:50.547, setting a lap 0.092s faster than Kato’s initial benchmark.

At that point in the session, Slater came onto the radio to report issues with the right rear of his car – reminiscent of the issue that ultimately led his tyre to detach in the feature race at Monza five days ago. With 6:26 left, he headed back into the 562-metre pitlane – the longest on the calendar – and received a fresh set of hard tyres as the mechanics checked over his car.

In the meantime, Kato returned to the top once more with a 1:50.535 despite brushing the wall. But Slater’s woes continued.

“Mate, the car’s broken. It’s crabbing,” Slater bemoaned over the radio after leaving the pit lane. To make matters worse for the Briton, Ugochukwu shot up to fourth, 0.142s behind Kato. Slater started a final run but did not improve his time after missing the apex at the first corner and aborting his lap. This, paired with others’ improvements, left him 17th on the grid for both of Saturday’s races.

With no one able to beat him, Kato claimed his first pole position, as Clerot and Taponen took second and third, just 0.012s and 0.102s behind respectively.

Ugochukwu missed out on the top three but still holds a clear advantage over Slater by starting ninth in the sprint race and fourth in the feature race tomorrow. Enzo Deligny was the only driver to move into the top five on the final runs, having previously been ninth overall.

Jin Nakamura and Ernesto Rivera finished sixth and seventh ahead of Alessandro Giusti in eighth. Bruno Del Pino finished ninth, while Alex Powell, who joined Prema Racing in the previous round, rounded out the top 10. Théophile Naël and James Wharton, who finished 11th and 12th, will occupy the front row for Saturday’s sprint race.

Qualifying 2

In the narrow 10-minute gap between the two sessions, Trident worked to repair the issues on Slater’s car and changed his setup entirely, not wanting a repeat of the Briton’s previous troubles.

Kato and ART Grand Prix were first out on track once more, though it was Slater who had the upper hand this time around. In direct contrast to his difficulties half an hour earlier, he set multiple purple sectors en route to topping the timing tower with a 1:49.972. 

Ugochukwu slotted behind his title rival in second but was 0.518s off Slater’s pace. The Campos driver was soon passed by the likes of Clerot and Badoer, ending up sixth after the first flying laps.

On his second run, Slater bounded across the kerbs at Turns 5 and 6 before locking up straight after. With under nine minutes now left on the clock, Kato snatched first place with a 1:49.916, 0.056s faster than Slater after the errors put paid to his second run. Kato did not stay at the top for long, however, as Ugochukwu replaced him with a time t 0.015s faster than the Japanese driver’s best – before Clerot set a 1:49.530 seconds later to go 0.071s faster than Ugochukwu.

Slater headed out once more for his final run of the session and initially looked fast, being 0.230s up on Clerot in sector one. But that was still slower than his best first sector, and he lost time in sector two and made no further improvements. He then aborted his lap and headed back to pit lane to bring his session to an end.

In the meantime, Ugochukwu set a session-best second sector and moved back into first with a 1:49.771, 0.059s ahead of Clerot. The Rodin Motorsport driver was gearing up for his own final lap, setting a purple sector one before losing time in sector two as the chequered flag fell. He was pushing hard in sector three – but perhaps too hard, as he smashed into the wall on the exit of the final corner. That incident brought the session to an end with many drivers missing out on being able to finish their final laps because of the incident.

Before Clerot’s crash, Taponen had enough time to set a 1:49.750, which displaced Ugochukwu and gave the Finn his second pole position of the 2026 season after Budapest. For the driver currently eighth in the standings with 66 points, 11 points away from third, pole position represents an opportunity to rocket up the standings.

Clerot managed to hold on to third ahead of Kato in fourth to take his second top-three finish across the two sessions. Clerot’s season, like Taponen’s, has yielded a mixed set of results, with the Brazilian taking three podiums but also finishing outside the points on nine occasions.

“It’s been an up-and-down season,” Clerot said. “Some really good results, some not so much. We’ve been very quick every single race day. We’ve just been struggling a little bit with the pace on the Friday and we’ve been working on it. Sometimes we were very unlucky, and things out of my control and the team’s control put us on the back foot. 

“I’m just happy that we are fighting at the front in Monza. It was a bit unfortunate on my side. I was leading the sprint and I had an engine failure and also in the top five in the feature race and I got taken out.

“The results were already there, but just maximising here today was the main thing. Finishing on a high point, good points for the team. We’re in a good battle for the teams’ championship. It’s quite close with people around P2 and P3, so it’s going to be interesting. I’m just happy to qualify both times in the top three. I’m not particularly happy with how my qualifying ended today. Maybe we should have been on pole.”

Colnaghi finished fifth, with Deligny in sixth and Giusti in seventh. Slater finished eighth, nine positions higher than his starting place for the sprint race and first feature race. He is also six places away from Ugochukwu, who starts all three races in the top 10. 

Yevan David finished ninth, with Rivera rounding out the top 10. There is no reversed grid from the session’s classification.

Championship permutations

Rivera and Campos teammate Naël, who finished 13th, are now mathematically out of contention for the championship at 65 and 66 points back respectively, having failed to clinch at least one pole each. Slater and Ugochukwu remain in contention, with 63 points up for grabs and 15 points separating them.

In the sprint, Slater cannot clinch the title, nor can Ugochukwu gain the lead of the championship. Slater needs to gain 12 points on Ugochukwu across Saturday’s two races to clinch the title after the first feature race. Ugochukwu must wait until the second feature race to be able to clinch the title.

The permutations also mean that Slater will finish no lower than second in the standings come the feature race on Sunday, while Ugochukwu can finish no lower than fourth. Should both drivers make the expected step up to F2 next year, they will receive at minimum €250,000 for Slater and €150,000 for Ugochukwu from F3 to put towards their drives.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency