Tuukka Taponen controlled the final Formula 3 feature race of the season from lights to flag to secure victory and third place in the drivers’ standings. But the biggest spoils of the day went to the driver behind him on track, Campos Racing’s Ugo Ugochukwu, whose second-place finish ensured he clinched the drivers’ championship as title rival Freddie Slater, level on points with him before the race, came home eighth.

By Tori Turner

Having taken pole position for the extra feature race this weekend in Friday’s second qualifying session, MP Motorsport driver Taponen took the inside line immediately after launching from first on the grid, covering off Ugochukwu to maintain his lead heading into Turn 1. Slater, who started eighth, lost a position to AIX Racing’s Yevan David at the opening corner and dropped to ninth, with Ugochukwu’s Campos teammate Ernesto Rivera also pressuring him. 

Alessandro Giusti was the only other mover in the top 10, taking sixth from Enzo Deligny at Turn 1 on the opening lap.

On lap three, Audi junior Slater decreased the gap to David ahead and looked as though he would pounce on the AIX Racing car, but the Briton was unable to get past. He set the fastest lap of the race at that point on lap four, a 1:52.825, then swiftly pushed past David around the outside of Turn 1 to take eighth back on lap five.

Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi briefly stopped at the Turn 5 and 6 chicane later that lap, disabling DRS temporarily and bringing out yellow flags. He was able to keep the car running, later returning to pit lane to replace his front wing, and no safety car was brought out.

As in yesterday’s feature race, a DRS train formed from Taponen in first to James Wharton in 17th by the middle stages of the race, with drivers finding it difficult to pass around the 5.414-kilometre circuit. On lap 11, Ugochukwu briefly dropped out of Taponen’s DRS range after the Finn set the fastest lap, with Pedro Clerot five-tenths behind him in third. He moved back to being within a second of Taponen on lap 12 and remained there for the five laps after it.

On lap 16, David had a big wobble heading out of Turn 18, and Rivera passed him to take ninth place. Hiyu Yamakoshi then tumbled down the order from 13th on lap 17, stopping on the uphill run to Turn 7 and bringing out a safety car. 

While a restart before the end of the 19-lap race initially seemed unlikely, the track marshals quickly pushed the car down the slope and behind the barriers by the end of lap 18, setting up a one-lap shootout to end the finale.

Taponen controlled the safety car restart with Ugochukwu trailing behind slightly but still comfortably in second. José Garfias was spun by Noah Strømsted at Turn 2 and tapped the barrier but got the car going again.

There were no further position changes among the frontrunners, and Taponen crossed the finish line 1.398s ahead of Ugochukwu to become the first Finnish winner in F3, and he picked up an extra point for setting the fastest lap among the top 10 drivers on his final tour, a 1:52.147. His maiden victory also secured MP Motorsport their first win this season and elevated the Dutch team to third in the teams’ standings. 

But all eyes turned to Ugochukwu, who maintained second throughout all 19 laps and crucially finished six positions ahead of Slater. His haul of 18 points handed him the championship on 159 points, 14 ahead of Slater on 145. It is his third career junior single-seater championship after he won the Euro 4 crown in 2023 and beat Slater to the FR Oceania title earlier this year.

With his championship win, Ugochukwu became the first American champion in F3 and its former iteration of GP3 and the first from North America since Esteban Gutiérrez, who won the inaugural GP3 title in 2010. As the son of Nigerian model Oluchi Onweagba, Ugochukwu also became the first champion of African descent. 

The former McLaren junior – who shares a management stable, ADD Management, with Slater – also became the first drivers’ champion from Campos, meaning he secured a double for the Valencian outfit based just over 300 kilometres from the track after they sealed the teams’ championship yesterday. It is the first double title in F3 since Oscar Piastri and Prema Racing won their respective titles in 2020.

In the race, yesterday’s feature race winner Clerot finished third after taking his maiden victory in the first feature race yesterday. Taito Kato finished fourth, his fifth points score in succession, ahead of Mattia Colnaghi in fifth and Giusti in sixth. The MP drivers’ combined haul of 44 points is the largest in a single race in team history.

Deligny stayed ahead of Slater in seventh. Rivera came home ninth, and David took the final points-paying position of the race as well as AIX’s final points score in their F3 tenure.

For 2027, the German-Emirati squad’s F3 entry will be taken over by the new LN4 Fusion squad, headed by former Prema Racing team manager René Rosin with the backing of current F1 world champion Lando Norris.

In the drivers’ standings, Ugochukwu ended on 159 and Slater on 145. Taponen’s spectacular end to the season with four top-five finishes, including three podiums, in the final four feature races vaulted him to third on 109 points, with ART Grand Prix’s Kato also breaking into the triple digits with 105 points.

Théophile Naël and Clerot tied for fifth on 88 points, but Naël’s two sprint race victories give him the tiebreak – critical for F3 scholarship money allocation should one or both be in line to receive the prize to support an F2 move. Rivera finished seventh on 87 points, with Brando Badoer on 71, Yamakoshi also on 71 and Strømsted on 65 rounding out the overall top 10.

Campos added more points to their title-winning tally with Ugochukwu and Rivera finishing in the top 10, ending their season on 334 points. Trident held onto second with 217 points despite scoring only four points all weekend, the team’s smallest single-weekend haul since their scoreless round in Hungary in 2019.

MP Motorsport surged late on to finish just nine points behind on 208, with ART Grand Prix taking fourth on 189 and Van Amersfoort Racing in fifth on 168. Rodin Motorsport took home a total of 161 points in sixth with a sizeable gap to Prema Racing in seventh on 75 points. Hitech on 55, DAMS on 53 and AIX on 43.

Curiously, the top eight teams finished in the same positions they occupied last year, meaning teams are set to run the same car numbers as they did last year. With LN4 Fusion taking over AIX’s entry, DAMS – who improved from to 10th to ninth – were guaranteed to run car numbers 26, 27 and 28 next year regardless of whether they finished ninth or 10th.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency