Heading into qualifying for the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix for the Formula 3 series, Rafael Câmara led practice. He looked to be the favourite for pole, with Nikola Tsolov in second and Tuuka Taponen in third in practice.
First runs
As the session began, most of the 30 drivers immediately headed out onto the circuit. Trident, like in practice, elected to hold back until later on in the session. They managed to find space on the track without any other cars.
Hitech’s Gerrard Xie went off the track trying to pass other cars, and Campos’ Tsolov dived down the inside of another car. Xie decided to go ahead of the pack of cars behind him. The Hitechs and Trident’s Câmara, the feature race winner in Australia, decided to pit.
Due to F3 not having tyre blankets, every driver does two out laps to get tyre temperature up.
The Rodin cars were the first to set times, as Callum Voisin went first ahead of Louis Sharp and Roman Bilinski.
A number of different teams and drivers soon followed, as Mari Boya of Campos went first, followed by DAMS’ Nicola Lacorte in second. Boya’s teammate Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak went first but was quickly pipped by McLaren junior and Prema driver Ugo Ugochukwu. MP’s Alessandro Giusti went first and Noel Leon followed teammate Ugochukwu and moved up into fifth and Theophile Nael went third.
The final Prema of Brando Badoer moved ahead of Sharp into ninth, and ART’s James Wharton went first. Christian Ho impressed as he moved to the top for a few seconds before Tsolov moved first where he remained for the next ten minutes.
At the end of the first runs, the top 12 was Tsolov (Campos), Ho (DAMS), Wharton (ART), Giusti (MP), Ugochukwu (Prema), Nael (VAR), Inthraphuvasak (Campos), Boya (Campos), Stromsted (Trident), Leon (Prema), Lacorte (DAMS) and Voisin (Rodin)
Lap times were being deleted at turn 4 and turn 13, especially, with numerous drivers being caught out. Louis Sharp and Javier Sagrera both had times deleted early on.
Second runs
Less than ten minutes later, they were back doing it again.
Martinius Stenshorne was the first to set a time in the second runs, going first ahead of Tsolov. Giusti, Tim Tramnitz and Câmara all moved ahead of the Hitech driver with Bruno del Pino just behind. Van Hoepen and Badoer moved into ninth and tenth. Stromsted went into fourth, and Noel Leon went ninth.
In the next thirty seconds, the top ten went from being Voisin, Giusti, Câmara, Stromsted, Tramnitz, Stenshorne, del Pino, Wharton, Lacorte and Tsolov to being the same top three but followed by Charlie Wurz, Taponen, then Stromsted, Tramnitz, Ho, Stenshorne and Inthraphuvasak.
By the end of the second runs, Tsolov had got himself up to fourth.
Final runs
With only twenty seconds left, lap times started coming in again. Tramnitz went fourth and del Pino went first before Rafael Câmara blew the whole field away with a time that was half a second quicker than del Pino’s. Despite being the third driver to set a top-ten time with over 20 drivers still left, no one could catch Câmara’s time. Câmara took his second pole in a row and in his first two F3 races.
Voisin went closest with a time that was a tenth and a half back. Following Voisin was identical times by Wurz and Ho, then del Pino, Taponen, Stromsted, Tsolov, Giusti, Freddie Slater on debut, Stenshorne and Joshua Dufek. Here’s the results.
- Rafael Câmara
- Callum Voisin
- Charlie Wurz
- Christian Ho
- Bruno del Pino
- Tuuka Taponen
- Noah Stromsted
- Nikola Tsolov
- Alessandro Giusti
- Freddie Slater
- Martinius Stenshorne
- Joshua Dufek
- Tim Tramnitz
- Noel Leon
- Javier Sagrera
- Brando Badoer
- Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak
- Louis Sharp
- Roman Bilinski
- Mari Boya
- Ugo Ugochukwu
- Theophile Nael
- Ivan Domingues
- James Wharton
- Nicola Lacorte
- Laurens van Hoepen
- Gerrard Xie
- Matias Zagazeta
- Nicola Marinangeli
- Santiago Ramos
Feature Image Credit: Red Bull Content Pool
