Roundup of the eighth round of the 2025 F3 season as the campaign began to approach its final stretch on a chaotic weekend in Spa-Francorchamps.
Trident’s Rafael Camara arrived in Belgium as the championship leader but fog and rain played a part in a chaotic weekend which saw the Brazilian extend his title lead, amidst a change of his nearest challenger.
Practice
Low fog prevented practice from taking place in its traditional early-morning slot and instead moved to the early afternoon slot usually reserved for qualifying but reduced to 30 minutes, with Camara and Charlie Wurz first out of the pit lane once the session commenced.
Noah Stromsted however was the first driver to set a benchmark time of 2m 07.887 but Camara went fastest on 2m 06.775 but his time was deleted, due to a breach of track limits at Raidillon.
Campos’ Mari Boya took advantage of the track limits catching out many drivers as he posted 2m 06.111 in the ninth minute to go quickest, although he later had a 2m 06.028 deleted after he himself ran foul of track limits.
Martinius Stenshorne and Bruno del Pino rounded out the top three after they set their times in the 16th minute, with Stenshorne just 0.038 seconds off Boya’s session-topping time.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Mari Boya | Campos | 2m 06.111 |
| 2 | Martinius Stenshorne | Hitech GP | + 0.038 |
| 3 | Bruno del Pino | MP Motorsport | + 0.164 |
| 4 | Ugo Ugochukwu | PREMA | + 0.303 |
| 5 | Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak | Campos | + 0.333 |
| 6 | Theophile Nael | VAR | + 0.397 |
| 7 | Brad Benavides | AIX Racing | + 0.520 |
| 8 | Nikola Tsolov | Campos | + 0.520 |
| 9 | Roman Bilinski | Rodin | + 0.556 |
| 10 | Noah Stromsted | Trident | + 0.584 |
| 11 | Rafael Camara | Trident | + 0.664 |
| 12 | Tim Tramnitz | MP Motorsport | + 0.668 |
| 13 | Noel Leon | PREMA | + 0.703 |
| 14 | Callum Voisin | Rodin | + 0.706 |
| 15 | Laurens van Hoepen | ART GP | + 0.777 |
| 16 | Alessandro Giusti | MP Motorsport | + 0.849 |
| 17 | Freddie Slater | Hitech GP | + 0.914 |
| 18 | Santiago Ramos | VAR | + 0.950 |
| 19 | James Wharton | ART GP | + 1.007 |
| 20 | Brando Badoer | PREMA | + 1.085 |
| 21 | Tuukka Taponen | ART GP | + 1.091 |
| 22 | Charlie Wurz | Trident | + 1.139 |
| 23 | Nicola Lacorte | DAMS | + 1.209 |
| 24 | Gerrard Xie | Hitech GP | + 1.218 |
| 25 | Christian Ho | DAMS | + 1.311 |
| 26 | Matias Zagazeta | DAMS | + 1.437 |
| 27 | Louis Sharp | Rodin | + 1.518 |
| 28 | James Hedley | AIX Racing | + 1.562 |
| 29 | Ivan Domingues | VAR | + 1.876 |
| 30 | Nicola Marinangeli | AIX Racing | + 2.567 |
Qualifying
The disruption to practice caused qualifying to be moved to an evening slot with Stromsted first out on track but it was Hedley who posted the first representative lap time of 2m 08.766 in the eighth minute.
His lap time however was beaten by several drivers as Camara posted 2m 05.557 to head Ugochukwu after the first round of flying laps, whilst Sharp, Stenshorne, Bilinski, Leon and Boya saw their lap times deleted due to track limit breaches.
Camara’s time remained unbeaten at the halfway mark as Inthraphuvasak improved to second from Giusti, before Nael went quickest with 11 minutes left after he produced 2m 05.508 to go onto provisional pole.
A frantic flurry of final laps soon followed in which Benavides snatched a surprise maiden F3 pole with 2m 04.253 which he set with three minutes left, to head Camara, Voisin, Bilinski, Stenshorne, Ugochukwu, Tsolov, Inthraphuvasak, Wurz, Del Pino, Stromsted and Slater – who took reverse pole for the sprint.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Brad Benavides | AIX Racing | 2m 04.253 |
| 2 | Rafael Camara | Trident | + 0.106 |
| 3 | Callum Voisin | Rodin | + 0.207 |
| 4 | Roman Bilinski | Rodin | + 0.218 |
| 5 | Martinius Stenshorne | Hitech GP | + 0.231 |
| 6 | Ugo Ugochukwu | PREMA | + 0.317 |
| 7 | Nikola Tsolov | Campos | + 0.334 |
| 8 | Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak | Campos | + 0.409 |
| 9 | Charlie Wurz | Trident | + 0.485 |
| 10 | Bruno del Pino | MP Motorsport | + 0.585 |
| 11 | Noah Stromsted | Trident | + 0.605 |
| 12 | Freddie Slater | Hitech GP | + 0.656 |
| 13 | Tim Tramnitz | MP Motorsport | + 0.687 |
| 14 | Brando Badoer | PREMA | + 0.771 |
| 15 | Nicola Lacorte | DAMS | + 0.781 |
| 16 | Mari Boya | Campos | + 0.794 |
| 17 | Gerrard Xie | Hitech GP | + 0.835 |
| 18 | Alessandro Giusti | MP Motorsport | + 0.912 |
| 19 | Laurens van Hoepen | ART GP | + 0.981 |
| 20 | James Wharton | ART GP | + 1.026 |
| 21 | Ivan Domingues | VAR | + 1.132 |
| 22 | Christian Ho | DAMS | + 1.136 |
| 23 | Theophile Nael | VAR | + 1.255 |
| 24 | Louis Sharp | Rodin | + 1.255 |
| 25 | Santiago Ramos | VAR | + 1.427 |
| 26 | Matias Zagazeta | DAMS | + 1.442 |
| 27 | Noel Leon | PREMA | + 1.489 |
| 28 | James Hedley | AIX Racing | + 1.679 |
| 29 | Tuukka Taponen | ART GP | + 1.712 |
| 30 | Nicola Marinangeli | AIX Racing | + 4.512 |
Sprint Race
An unusually sensible start saw Slater lead Stromsted and Del Pino as everyone behaved, although Del Pino soon lost third to Wurz following a brief exchange of positions between the pair throughout the opening lap and start of the second lap.
Up front, Stromsted kept Slater within sight and managed to clear the Brit on the Kemmel Straight on lap three from which he sprinted away to a comfortable victory as Slater eventually began to struggle with his tyre wear.
Ugochukwu meanwhile performed a double pass on Wurz and Del Pino on the Kemmel Straight on lap four and eventually cleared Slater on lap seven, whilst Del Pino fell from fifth to eighth between the start of lap six and end of lap seven, before he lost two more positions on lap eight.
Stenshorne cleared Slater into La Source on lap nine for fourth but Tsolov and Camara had quietly progressed climbed through the field and quickly cleared the Brit, which put Stenshorne under pressure as Tsolov passed him into the Bus Stop chicane.
Camara followed suit a lap later before Inthraphuvasak eventually demoted the Norwegian to seventh.
Up front, Stromsted led Ugochukwu and Wurz home to complete the podium whilst Tsolov, Camara, Inthraphuvasak, Stenshorne, Del Pino, Badoer and Giusti rounded out the top ten.
Slater eventually was classified 26th after he received a 20-second time penalty which consisted of four five-second time penalties, due to multiple track limit breaches totalling seven occasions.
Camara marginally extended his title lead to 28 points but Tsolov replaced Tramnitz as his nearest challenger in second, following the German’s non-points scoring finish.
| Position | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Noah Stromsted | Trident | 12 | 25m 49.564 |
| 2 | Ugo Ugochukwu | PREMA | 12 | + 6.044 |
| 3 | Charlie Wurz | Trident | 12 | + 8.081 |
| 4 | Nikola Tsolov | Campos | 12 | + 8.521 |
| 5 | Rafael Camara | Trident | 12 | + 9.546 |
| 6 | Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak | Campos | 12 | + 14.797 |
| 7 | Martinius Stenshorne | Hitech GP | 12 | + 15.783 |
| 8 | Bruno del Pino | MP Motorsport | 12 | + 16.571 |
| 9 | Brando Badoer | PREMA | 12 | + 17.355 |
| 10 | Alessandro Giusti | MP Motorsport | 12 | + 18.330 |
| 11 | Gerrard Xie | Hitech GP | 12 | + 18.989 |
| 12 | Tim Tramnitz | MP Motorsport | 12 | + 19.487 |
| 13 | Roman Bilinski | Rodin | 12 | + 20.597 |
| 14 | Mari Boya | Campos | 12 | + 20.934 |
| 15 | Noel Leon | PREMA | 12 | + 23.684 |
| 16 | Nicola Lacorte | DAMS | 12 | + 24.739 |
| 17 | Callum Voisin | Rodin | 12 | + 29.611 |
| 18 | Tuukka Tapponen | ART GP | 12 | + 32.256 |
| 19 | Brad Benavides | AIX Racing | 12 | + 32.530 |
| 20 | James Wharton | ART GP | 12 | + 32.807 |
| 21 | Santiago Ramos | VAR | 12 | + 33.077 |
| 22 | Theophile Nael | VAR | 12 | + 33.659 |
| 23 | Laurens van Hoepen | ART GP | 12 | + 33.762 |
| 24 | James Hedley | AIX Racing | 12 | + 34.697 |
| 25 | Louis Sharp | Rodin | 12 | + 36.817 |
| 26 | Freddie Slater | Hitech GP | 12 | + 38.001 |
| 27 | Nicola Marinangeli | AIX Racing | 12 | + 38.782 |
| 28 | Christian Ho | DAMS | 12 | + 42.668 |
| 29 | Ivan Domingues | VAR | 12 | + 45.313 |
| 30 | Matias Zagazeta | DAMS | 8 | Mechanical |
Feature Race
Heavy overnight rain left the track wet as the formation lap began under the safety car but Hedley spun off at Eau Rouge, whilst Tramnitz and Badoer spun off on the Kemmel Straight which prompted a 32-minute red flag.
Stewards opted to commence the race immediately under the safety car upon the restart but out of Malmedy, Inthraphuvasak spun off trying to avoid Tsolov who was wildly weaving just ahead of him which caused the Thai driver to stop on the inside of Bruxelles.
Stewards consequently threw a red flag on the second lap and ultimately aborted the race, with no points awarded due to only one lap completed under safety car.
F3 now head to the Hungaroring, Budapest, Hungary, for the penultimate round of the season from 1-3 August ahead of the summer break, before the final round takes place at Monza, Italy on weekend of 5-7 September.
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