F3 heads to the Spa-Francorchamps for Round 8 of the 2025 FIA F3 Championship. The F3 Belgian GP Practice session was originally scheduled for 9 a.m. local time, but heavy fog grounded the medical helicopter, forcing officials to postpone the session to 2 p.m. As a result, Qualifying has also been rescheduled for later in the day.
What to watch for this weekend
The 2025 F3 season has already seen nine different race winners across the Sprint and Feature Races, but will Spa crown a tenth? The Belgian circuit presents yet another chance for a new name to join the winner’s list.
Campos Racing currently lead the Teams’ Standings and has claimed the most podium finishes so far in 2025. With Nikola Tsolov sitting P2 in the Drivers’ Championship and Mari Boya in P4, both will be looking to maximise their points haul this weekend and close the gap to the top. Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak also claimed his maiden F3 win at Silverstone, highlighting the strength of Campos across all 3 drivers.
Freddie Slater returns for his second F3 race weekend of the season after debuting in Round 2 in Bahrain. He impressed with a podium in the Sprint Race at Sakhir and now joins Hitech TGR at Spa, racing alongside Martinius Stenshorne and Gerrard Xie.
Spa is also known to cause chaos, so this weekend is sure to keep drivers on their toes, with the weather being unpredictable and causing challenging conditions.
It’s green lights for the postponed F3 Belgian GP Practice session
Practice was reduced to 30 minutes, taking place in the time that the Qualifying session would have been if the earlier session had gone ahead. All cars headed to the track straight out of the gates, not wasting any time to hit the track and get their tyres up to temperature.
Trident’s Noah Strømsted was first to set a competitive flying lap with a time of 2:07.887. As the cars continued to go for their first flying laps, the times continued to improve, which moved into the 2:06 second times. Due to track limits, drivers struggled to keep their times, losing them in three different corners across the circuit.
Campos setting the pace with 20 minutes to go
Campos Racing’s Boya set a time of 2:06.111, and Inthraphuvasak followed in P2 0.4 seconds behind him.
The second set of push laps started to trickle in, with Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu setting the fastest first and third sectors, moving him to P2.
Rafael Câmara set a competitive time, which placed him in P5, but he hit track limits again for a second time, which saw the Championship leader’s time deleted, dropping him down to dead last in P30.
Stenshorne and Del Pino moved to P2 and P3, respectively, with Stenshorne 0.1 seconds behind Boya. Ugochukwu moved down to P4, 0.3 seconds behind P1.
Noel León went wide on track, pushing the limits and kicking up gravel, fortunately keeping control of his car.
Following Strømsted’s earlier time, Trident appeared to be struggling, with their Wurz, Strømsted and Câmara in P18, P25 and P30.
10 minutes left of F3 Belgian GP Practice session
Trident set their drivers out first, eager to improve on their lap times and avoid hitting track limits. Strømsted moved to P19, with Câmara only moving to P18 on his flying lap. He was 1.1 seconds off the pace of Boya. Trident appear to be lacking pace at Spa this weekend.
Boya had improved on his previous time with a 2:06.028, but his lap time was deleted, still keeping him atop the ladder in P1. Stenshorne set out on another flying lap, but he saw no improvement and stayed in P2.
Drivers set out on their last flying laps, with personal best sectors starting to appear. Câmara improved to P15, and Tsolov moved to P8.
Xie ran wide and kicked up gravel, as well as Giusti, on the final corner of sector 2.
Taponen had set out for an out lap, but he ran wide on the last corner, and his ART Grand Prix car came to a halt on the start/finish straight. Yellow flags were waved, but he managed to get his car started again for Practice starts to occur.
Boya finished the session in P1, with Stenshorne, Del Pino, Ugochukwu and Inthraphuvasak following in P2 to P5.
Full results from the F3 Belgian GP Practice session
- M Boya
- M Stenshorne
- B del Pino
- U Ugochukwu
- T Inthraphuvasak
- T Naël
- B Benavides
- N Tsolov
- R Bilinski
- N Strømsted
- R Câmara
- T Tranmitz
- N León
- C Voisin
- L Van Hoepen
- A Giusti
- F Slater
- S Ramos
- J Wharton
- B Badoer
- T Taponen
- C Wurz
- N Lacorte
- G Xie
- C Ho
- M Zagazeta
- L Sharp
- J Hedley
- I Domingues
- N Marinangeli
