The races held at Madring were successful for the Ferrari Driver Academy protégés this morning, but it was the young American Ugo Ugochukwu (Campos) who won the FIA Formula 3 title.
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Dino Beganovic (DAMS) won the Formula 2 Main Race in Madrid after perfectly taking advantage of the safety car intervention to make his stop and maintain the lead.
Starting from pole, the Ferrari program driver won ahead of Alex Dunne (Rodin) and Ritomo Miyata (Hitech), the Sprint winner on Saturday.
Frozen positions in F2, suspenseful conclusion in F3
Nikola Tsolov (Campos) had a much tougher day finishing outside the points, as did another Ferrari protégé Rafael Câmara (Invicta), penalized after contact with a competitor.
So the status quo remains in Formula 2 with a still small gap of 7 points between Tsolov and Câmara before the last two meetings in Baku in two weeks and the final scheduled in Qatar at the end of November, but likely moved to Imola in December.
The FIA Formula 3 championship ended today in Madrid with a thrilling finale that saw Ugo Ugochukwu (Campos) overtake leader Freddie Slater (Trident) after the three races held this weekend. The victory in the main race this morning went to another Ferrari junior, the Finnish Tuuka Taponen (MP Motorsport), who took pole position, ahead of Ugochukwu and the Brazilian Pedro Clerot (Rodin).
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Poorly qualified in the middle of the grid, Audi F1 protégé Slater could do no better than eighth, behind the French Alessandro Giusti (MP) and Enzo Deligny (VAR) but ahead of Théophile Naël (Campos) only twelfth and knocked off the final championship podium to settle for fifth after a difficult end of the season.
An American on the rise?
With this title, Ugochukwu may see his career take off. Winner of the Macau Grand Prix in 2024, he was recruited by his compatriot Zak Brown into McLaren’s junior program before abruptly leaving the Papaya program last winter.
Free of any commitment, the FIA F3 champion will likely race in Formula 2 next year and could interest Cadillac F1 after Colton Herta’s failure this season in F2. The former IndyCar star still does not have the super license and did not even start this weekend in Madrid after a big crash at the end of qualifying.
At 19 years old (compared to 27 for Herta), Ugochukwu could be the American candidate awaited for the Cadillac F1 program. If he succeeds, he would be the second mixed-race driver (photo above) to reach the Grands Prix after a certain Lewis Hamilton, but he still needs to confirm his potential in F2 next season to really get his chance at the highest level.
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