Campos Racing’s Théophile Naël usurped James Wharton on the opening lap of the sprint race at the Madring en route to his third victory in Formula 3, finishing ahead of the Australian driver and Alex Powell in a race finished by all 28 competitors. Feeder Series heard from the top three drivers after the race.

By Tori Turner

On the run down to Turn 1, Wharton, who started on reverse-grid pole, was side by side with Naël. The Frenchman took the lead of the race by diving down the inside – but remained in first place only for the first few corners. Wharton passed him heading into the Turn 5 and 6 chicane, but he cut the chicane on trying to secure the position and handed the lead back to Naël before the end of the lap.

Alessandro Giusti, who started fifth, likewise cut the first chicane and passed Del Pino to take fourth, but he was only told to hand the position back to the Spaniard on lap five. Enzo Deligny was the only other driver in the top 10 to gain a position on lap one, passing Jin Nakamura at the same spot to move up to seventh.

Meanwhile, Freddie Slater dropped a position to 18th as Hiyu Yamakoshi passed him during the opening lap. The championship leader, who started 17th after experiencing issues in qualifying, was using the same tyres that he flat-spotted during the second qualifying session, which he finished eighth.

His title rival Ugo Ugochukwu, likewise running on old tyres, remained in his starting position of ninth, though he was initially within DRS range of Jin Nakamura’s car in front of him. He never made a move, however, and dropped over a second back from the Hitech on lap seven.

In the end, though, he ended up regaining the position anyways. Deligny was noted for leaving the track and gaining an advantage for his overtake on Nakamura earlier on in the race. The Van Amersfoort Racing driver received a 10-second time penalty on lap 13, which moved Ugochukwu up to eighth at the end of the race after it was applied.

The remainder of the race was a procession. Mid-race, Campos urged Ernesto Rivera to put pressure on Giusti, who was now out of Del Pino’s DRS range, but a move did not materialise. Teammate Naël stretched away at the front of the pack, amassing a 4.1-second gap to Wharton by the start of lap 12, while none of the other frontrunners got close enough to those in front to make a move.

The sole change of position in the top 10 after the opening lap came on lap 12. Sunday pole sitter Tuukka Taponen ran wide at the end of lap 11 but held on to 10th place on the road. Still, his momentum was scuppered, and the MP Motorsport driver lost the position to Taito Kato, polesitter for this evening’s first feature race, at the Turn 5 and 6 chicane the next time by.

Naël crossed the finish line on lap 16 with a sizable 8.993s gap over Wharton. The Campos driver also scored another point for setting the fastest lap, setting a 1:51.214 on lap 14. The victory put him clear at the top for most wins this season with three, adding to his victories in the Barcelona feature race and Budapest sprint race, and marks his eighth career F3 podium.

Wharton lost the lead on the opening lap but still returned to the podium for the first time since his win in the Barcelona sprint race. 

“I really wanted to get that first win around this track,” Wharton said. “It would have been something that I could take away from 2026. I didn’t quite get the job done, but we felt the tyre deg was going to be a big issue. We thought there would be something, but it wasn’t as clear as what we expected.

“Maybe I could have pushed a little bit more at the start of the race, but the lack of knowledge was quite tough. Normally we go into a race really understanding what happened in previous years, but today we didn’t have that. It was learning on the race itself. As you saw with Théo, he kept getting faster. At the same time, we have to again take a podium today, and that’s all we could have done.”

Finishing 2.234s behind his Prema Racing teammate was Powell, who scored a podium in just his third F3 race after replacing Louis Sharp. The result marks the first double podium for the five-time F3 teams’ champions since the Spa sprint race in July 2024, and it makes Powell only the second mid-season debutant after Slater last year to take a podium in their first two rounds in the championship.

“It was very last-minute, so they really were a big help,” Powell told Feeder Series on how the team had helped him adjust to racing in F3 over the past two weekends. “Everyone inside the team, especially my teammates and my engineer, any information that I could get was helpful as everything was new to me. Last weekend was learning all the processes and everything of the race weekend. This weekend we made a good step forward, but it has been extremely challenging, especially coming in at the last part of the year.”

Del Pino missed out on the podium positions to finish fourth ahead of Giusti in fifth and Rivera in sixth. Nakamura and Ugochukwu ended up seventh and eighth after Deligny’s penalty, which dropped him to 15th. Kato moved up to ninth, while Taponen reclaimed the final points-paying position of the race he had sacrificed on track.

By finishing 18th, Slater did not score any points in the sprint race. He remains in the points lead on 141 points, while Ugochukwu added three points to his total to move up to 129 points and cut Slater’s lead to 12 ahead of the feature race this evening.

Naël’s victory moves him back up to third in the standings on 86 points, now five points ahead of Rivera on 81 points. They are now the only two drivers who can overhaul Ugochukwu for second overall, though the American is guaranteed a top-three finish given the gaps.

“It was not where I wanted to be, but to still be in the top three would be something, could be something very positive for the future as well,” Naël said. “The pace has been there the whole season. There are some disappointing race weekends that I’ve made, but overall I’m extremely happy. Three pole positions in a row at the beginning of the season, that was spot on. Then we had some issues in some races, some penalties that I could have avoided, but I’m still extremely happy if I can be in the top three at the end of the weekend.”

The teams’ championship fight has also been narrowed to two contenders, with Campos currently 83 points ahead of Trident. A total of 59 points are available in each of the remaining two feature races, meaning the Italian squad must outscore their Spanish rivals by 25 to stand a chance of taking the fight into Sunday. 

All 28 drivers finished the race, a rare event in F3. It marked the first time in series history that the full field finished a race on a circuit new to the championship.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency