F3: Ferrari junior Rafael Camara wins Hungaroring race to secure championship title

F1 Grand Prix, GP Hungary, Hungaroring

In challenging conditions, Ferrari Academy member Rafael Camara claimed his fourth victory of the F3 season in Sunday's Mogyoród F3 Feature Race to seal the drivers' championship, with the season-closing Monza round still to go.

Starting from pole position, Rafael Camara maintained the lead at the rolling start. However, the Brazilian looked to slightly struggle at some places, mainly into the chicane on a damp surface, with Aston Martin's Mari Boya having appeared to be more confident in the challenging conditions.

The Safety Car was deployed on Lap 4 with AIX Racing driver Brad Benavides in the tyre wall at the exit of Turn 13 following contact with Rodin Motorsport’s Roman Bilinski. Drivers spent three laps behind the safety car, and when the racing got back underway, Camara managed to cling on to the lead.

However, just moments after the restart, Ugo Ugochukwu looked set to complete an overtake on Gerrard Xie for P4 at Turn 5 but was tagged into a spin by the Hitech TGR driver. It brought out the Safety Car once again with both suffering race-ending damage and stopping on track.

The Safety Car was in at the end of Lap 10, and once again Camara got a clean restart to head the field. Camara and Boya began to separate themselves from the pack in the lead battle.

While the Aston Martin Development Driver was able to apply mid-race pressure, Camara soon began to gap the Campos driver, and went on to win the race and F3 title by just under two seconds.te

Ferrari's other junior F3 driver Tuukka Tapanon was unable to keep up with the leading pair, but it was still enough for him to complete the podium.

Camara's team-mate Charlie Wurz finished fourth, with Theophile Nael taking fifth. Having been in contention for the drivers' title earlier this season, Red Bull's junior driver Nikola Tsolov crossed the finish line in P6, ahead of Brando Badoer and Laurens van Hoepen.

Williams' junior racer Alessandro Giusti took ninth for MP Motorsport and Campos’ Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak rounded out the points in 10th.

Commenting on his victory, Camara said: “Just finished the Feature Race, also closing the Championship. Just very happy how we managed the whole season, I think we have been very strong since the beginning.

"Now we can relax a bit before Monza, enjoy the moment a bit, because during the Championship, it’s always difficult to enjoy moments because you always need to keep your focus, so just enjoy the moment.

"Thank you to everyone for the support, for cheering for me, and just going to enjoy it now. Thank you," Camara concluded.

With a 48-point advantage going into Monza, Câmara has clinched the 2025 Drivers’ title with a round to spare on 156 points. Boya moves up to second with his podium finish to go onto 108 points. Tsolov is now third on 106 points followed by Tim Tramnitz in fourth with 93 points, and Martinius Stenshorne in fifth with 80 points.

In the Teams’ Standings, TRIDENT head into the final round with 282 points in first position, with Campos Racing second on 263. MP Motorsport are third with 166 and ART Grand Prix follow in fourth on 144 points. Van Amersfoort Racing round out the top five on 136.