Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak wins the F3 Hungarian GP in a chaotic race around the Hungaroring. He was closely followed by Ugo Ugochukwu and Charlie Wurz, who rounded out the podium.
Inthraphuvasak starts off reverse grid pole position, with James Hedley alongside him on the front row. James Wharton is in row three, with Inthraphuvasak and the Australian both aiming for their second race victory in Hungary.
In a weekend critical to the championships, both drivers and constructors, everyone will be fighting for every possible position. Despite this, there is no way the championship can be won for Câmara today. He will have to wait until tomorrow to potentially claim victory.
Lights out for the Sprint Race
As all 30 drivers line up on the grid, the five lights go out and the drivers begin the F3 Hungarian Sprint Race. Immediately, Inthraphuvasak has a great getaway, covering off Hedley into Turn 1. The top three remain the same coming through the beginning stages of the first lap.
Elsewhere on the grid, all 30 drivers managed to make it through the first few turns without any incidents.
At the end of Lap 1, Alessandro Giusti picks up front left suspension damage after contact with Ugo Ugochukwu, bringing out the safety car early in the sprint race.
Meanwhile, Laurens Van Hoepen and Ivan Dominguez made contact early during lap 1, forcing them both to pit for front wing changes.
Championship protagonist Nikola Tsolov has made moves on the opening lap, elevating himself from 21st to 19th. Whereas his championship rival Rafael Câmara sits where he started in twelfth.
Safety Car restart
As the circuit goes green at the end of lap 4, Inthraphuvasak leads the pack away. The Thai driver continues to lead this race with Hedley behind. However, the pack is extremely close, with Wharton challenging the top 2.
DRS is enabled on lap 5 of the race, allowing Inthraphuvasak and Hedley to put a small buffer between themselves and ART’s James Wharton behind.
Câmara is driving a relatively safe race, with the Brazilian needing to have a clean weekend for his championship hopes. The drivers around him are well aware of this fact and are taking advantage of his somewhat ‘timid’ driving style at the moment.
Benavides and Noel Leon both overtake the championship leader within a few corners. However, Benavides is forced to give the place back as he did the overtake off track. Câmara moves back to 12th, and demotes Benavides to 14th.
Elsewhere in the field, Ugochukwu pulls off a brilliant overtake on James Wharton, putting his PREMA on the podium places once more this season. The American immediately makes a charge for the top 2 in this race, putting them under pressure quickly.
Final 10 laps
As the race settled into rhythm by Lap 9, the leading trio began to break away from the field, opening up a 2.2-second gap over James Wharton in fourth. The Australian found himself under increasing pressure from Badoer, who was closing in rapidly.
Ugochukwu made an aggressive move on Hedley into Turn 2, but the AIX driver held firm, slamming the door shut to maintain his position.
Meanwhile, Câmara was starting to come alive in the midfield, taking calculated risks which he hadn’t done all race. With moves on Taponen and Xie the Brazilian is now into the points.
Hedley, by contrast, lost touch with Inthraphuvasak ahead and dropped out of DRS range, now 1.1 seconds adrift as his pace began to fall off. Immediately after this, PREMA’s Ugochukwu capitalised and made his way into 2nd place. By lap 13, he had pulled out an almost 4-second gap to Hedley behind. The PREMA is truly coming alive in this half of the season.
By Lap 13, the battle in the out front intensified with Ugochukwu closing the gap to Inthraphuvasak to just 0.7 seconds as he looked to gain further ground. The Thai driver defended his position amazingly, keeping the American behind for the time being.
One lap later, momentum shifted again as Wurz surged forward, making a clean move on Wharton into Turn 1 to take fourth place. The Austrian is challenging for yet another podium, after his amazing finish in Spa last weekend.
Safety Car again
As this was happening, an intense battle between Noel Leon and Théophile Nael ensued. The pair ran each other off the road, making contact at turn 4. Leon’s PREMA could take no further part in the race, bringing out the safety car on lap 15 of the F3 Sprint race.
As it currently stands, Câmara sits in eighth, with Boya in seventh. With both Tramnitz and Tsolov out of the points, Câmara adds 3 points to his championship lead.
The safety car comes in on lap 18, leaving the pack to have a single lap of racing to decide final positions.
Inthraphuvasak and Ugochukwu immediately break away from the field. However, whilst under pressure, the PREMA driver runs wide, allowing Inthraphuvasak to break away and claim his second race victory of 2025. Meanwhile, Charlie Wurz makes his way past a struggling Hedley to claim yet another podium place this season.
On the final lap, Câmara and Boya had a mini battle with each other; however, the championship leader was unable to get past and stayed in eighth place.
Final Classification for the F3 Hungarian Grand Prix Sprint Race
Here is the final classification for the F3 Sprint race in Hungary.
- T. Inthraphuvasak
- U. Ugochukwu
- C. Wurz
- J. Hedley
- J. Wharton
- B. Badoer
- M. Boya
- R. Câmara
- T. Nael
- G. Xie
- T. Taponen
- S. Ramos
- T. Tramnitz
- R. Bilinski
- N. Tsolov
- L. Sharp
- N. Stromsted
- C. Voisin
- B. Del Pino
- L. Van Hoepen
- C. Ho
- N. Marinangeli
- M. Stenshorne
- N. Johnson
- M. Zagazeta
- I. Domingues
- N. Leon
- B. Benavides
- N. Lacorte
- A. Giusti
