Van Amersfoort Racing 2025 Season Review: Their best ever season but more work to do

Statistically, the 2025 season was Van Amersfoort Racing’s strongest in Formula 3, and while this pleases their Team Principal Bradley Joyce, he is not completely satisfied.

The Dutch outfit got off to a brilliant start, with Santiago Ramos winning the Melbourne Sprint Race, while Théophile Nael finished third in the Feature.

They went on to achieve another four podiums in the next four rounds, including two more wins in the Imola Feature for Ramos and the Barcelona Sprint Race for Ivan Domingues.

AIX Racing 2025 Season Review: An underrated season with a lot more to come

This meant VAR ended the first half of the campaign with 106 points and fourth in the Standings. However, the second set of five rounds yielded just one more podium and 22 points.

Even still, they ended the season fifth in the Championship, their best finished and with their largest ever points total of 138, leaving Joyce to reflect on both the positives and negatives.

“I think it went well,” said Joyce recapping the season. “We started well in the Sprint in Australia and another podium as well, so I think we were on top of the new car quite early.

“We had three wins, three second places, and a third, so it was a more successful season than our previous years, but I think that we didn't finish off the season as quite as strong as we would have liked, and we would like to be a little bit more consistent in some of the races.

“We weren't where we felt we should be on the grid or the races. F3 is so much about where you qualify, and it's so competitive that you need everything perfect.

“You need the right gaps, the right position on track, no yellow flags on your particular lap, a mistake free lap, the right tyre prep and everything has to be there, and then you can be solidly in the top 10. But it's definitely not as easy challenge.”

TRIDENT 2025 Season Review: A record-equalling third consecutive Drivers’ Title

When asked if VAR understood why their results took a slight dip in the second half of the year, Joyce highlighted a few key factors that affected their performance.

“I think we had a little bit of bad luck on occasions,” he said. “There was a couple of disappointing races that knocked us back a bit, and Monaco was not a great weekend for us.

“Santiago Ramos started very strong, but he seemed to have one or two issues towards the end of the year and obviously he didn’t do the final race weekend of the year, so we lost the opportunity with him, a strong driver.

“We had one round for instance in Silverstone, Santi was on a lap good enough for pole and then hit the limiter going into Stowe and lost half a second which put him back down the order.

“There are little bits, I think in Barcelona he was third and went off and hurt his back, which also cost us, so there are a few situations. A bit more consistency and I think there could have been better results at the end.

“There is a lot of luck that needs to go your way and there were a lot of different winners this year. It was a topsy turvy year for everyone other than Rafael Câmara, who had a really strong season. It was very much up and down.”

MP Motorsport 2025 Season Review: Plenty to smile about after a good year

VAR’s highest scoring driver this season was Nael on 72 points. The Frenchman’s eighth place finish is the highest a member of the Dutch team had finished in the Formula 3 Standings.

Nael wound up with three podiums and had many impressive performances throughout the year, leaving Joyce impressed by what he saw from the 18-year-old.

“He is a hundred perfect committed driver,” said Joyce. “He has a lot of car control and skill and he does push very hard, so it works out for him that he can get through the field really well and that's why you see those strong drives.

“But the other days where he was on a good drive and then one manoeuvre from another driver just wiped him out and he got shuffled back again. That's where the other small element of luck comes in place.

“He is very good in that way, and I also think our car was quite good on the tyres, so we seemed to have a good handle on degradation compared to other cars.”

READ MORE: AIX Racing retain Brad Benavides for the 2026 Formula 3 season

Looking ahead to the winter, Joyce says VAR’s focus will not only on the track, but also improving their all-around package as a team and how they work at the factory and on race weekends.

“When you are trying to run a racing team, you have broad targets but you don't think in those sort of broader targets,” he concluded.

“You look into the finer details of everything, so we need some more aspects on the car, we have some ideas to work on during the tests and further in-factory understanding as well.

“We also have ideas to work on how well the team performs in communication, in decision making, and in preparation moving forward. So you don't have one silver bullet and you suddenly move up all those places.

An exciting end to a tremendous season: Bruno Michel’s F3 Debrief

“You work hard in every aspect you can and maybe then we are a front running team, and we are running first or second.

“It's about many aspects and some of that is about the driver, but also in the driver itself it's just about extracting their full potential. That's all you can do, just make sure you are getting the very best you can out of the drivers.”