Round One – Australia – Sport Grill

Roundup of the opening round of the 2025 F3 season in Melbourne, Australia. 

With a new-generation car making its debut, hopes were high that F3 would continue to thrill and excite as a rookie made a strong debut for Trident, whilst everyone got to grips with the new machinery amidst red flags.

Practice

AIX Racing’s rookies, Javier Sagrera and Nicola Marinangeli were first on track but Van Amersfoort Racing’s (VAR) Santiago Ramos and Rodin’s Louis Sharp soon set the initial pace, until Hitech GP’s Joshua Dufek twice lowered the benchmark to 1m 35.402 in the 19th minute.

Trident rookie, Rafael Camara however went fastest two minutes later with 1m 34.904 and eventually topped the timings with 1m 34.652 set ten minutes from the end of the session.

Practice though was ultimately curtailed six minutes early as the red flags came out after Sharp stopped on the track with a technical issue.

Qualifying

Sagrera was again first out on track but Voisin set the benchmark time of 1m 36.799 initially until his Rodin teammate, Bilinksi then Trident’s Strømsted lowered the benchmark to 1m 35.898.

VAR’s Theophile Nael threw up a surprise on his second flier in his opening stint to go onto provisional pole at the half-way mark, having posted 1m 35.566 to go top from Bedrin.

Camara however opted to go early for his second stint which saw him produce 1m 34.999 with 11 minutes left to claim pole position on debut, and he was joined on the front row by teammate, Strømsted.

Nael, Bedrin, Tramnitz, Wurz, Inthraphuvasak, Ugochukwu, Stenshorne and Bilinski rounded out the top ten ahead Zagazeta who qualified on the front row for DAMS’ first F3 race, behind Ramos who claimed reverse pole for the sprint.

Sprint Race

At lights out, Ramos made a clean start to protect his lead whilst Zagazeta lost second to Bilinski and Inthraphuvasak, before Stenshorne benefitted from their scrap to snatch second into Turn 11.

The Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was soon deployed to remove Charlie Wurz’s stricken Trident following contact and shortly after the VSC was ended on lap three, Wharton spun Camara at Turn 11 with Laurens van Hoepen collected amongst the melee which earned the former a five-place grid penalty for the main race.

Racing resumed on lap nine and the top three were set as Ramos won from Stenshorne and Bilinski, whilst Inthraphuvasak cleared Zagazeta on Lap 14 for fourth position.

The race eventually finished under the safety car after Sagrera and Del Pino collided at turn six on lap 15 to prevent further running.

Feature Race

Heavy rainfall met the field for the main race which led stewards to opt for four formation laps before Camara led the field away, albeit with a reduced lap count of 20 due to the additional formation laps.

The safety car however was quickly deployed after Tsolov squeezed Voisin towards the outside wall, which caused the latter to collect the Bulgarian as the pair spun out of the race.

Racing resumed on lap six and two laps later, Stenshorne cleared Ugochukwu with Bilinski following suit a lap later whilst Camara led Strømsted by four seconds in a clear gap up front.

DAMS’ Christian Ho brought the safety car back out on lap 13 after he spun out at turn six just as the rain began to increase further in intensity, which ultimately brought out the red flags on lap 18 with Camara declared the winner.

Strømsted completed a Trident one-two whilst Nael, Bedrin, Tramnitz, Wurz, Inthraphuvasak, Stenshorne, Bilinski and Ugochukwu rounded out the top ten.

F3 will now head to Bahrain for the second round across the weekend of 11-13 April.

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