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What We Learned: The key talking points from Round 2 in Sakhir
Round 2 has come and gone and the 2025 Championship picture is beginning to take shape. Two races in tough conditions tested all 30 drivers, and some enjoyed strong weekends while others will be aiming to bounce back next month.
Here’s a few things we learned during the Sakhir race weekend.
Incomparable Câmara
Callum Voisin gave it a good go, but nobody could prevent Rafael Câmara from going back-to-back, claiming his second Pole and Feature Race victories of 2025.
The TRIDENT rookie has been the form driver so far this season, and in Sakhir his display was another impressive look at a driver enjoying lap after lap and dominating along the way.
Having lost the lead early to Voisin in the Feature Race, Câmara had to fight his way back through for P1 and the duo put on a great wheel-to-wheel battle.
READ MORE: Sakhir Qualifying Analysis: Where Câmara made the difference to take pole ahead of Voisin
for P1 and the duo put on a great wheel-to-wheel battle. Once the Brazilian was through though, he was in his own league, building up a 6.2s advantage by the chequered flag.
Not only was the winning advantage impressive, but the fact it also came around a circuit notorious for being tough on tyres and one he’d never driven before this year underlines how impressive an effort it was.
With a short break now between Rounds 2 and 3 and another visit to Imola, rivals will need to search for something to break the Câmara/TRIDENT momentum.
Taponen rebounds from Melbourne
After a tough opening weekend for rookie Tuukka Taponen, the Finn’s performances across all three days of Round 2 was much stronger.
The Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy member was in fine form across the in-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit, where he believes the team made a good step forward.
It proved to be the case as he put his car P6 on the grid in Qualifying to leave himself in contention in both races, and he duly converted with two scoring results including a maiden F3 podium with P3 in the Sprint Race.
Despite that, the ART driver is still eager to find more speed ahead of Round 3 and a return to familiar venues in Europe.
“We definitely need a little bit more pace,” he summarised after the weekend. “A little bit from me as well as from the team. We just need to work on that.
“We are not far and if we score decent points every weekend, we will end up quite high in the Championship. No need to have a big rush on that, and from my side to extract the most I have, that's the most important.”
READ MORE: Taponen says ART are not ‘far’ from challenging for wins after ‘better’ Sakhir weekend
PREMA Racing revival needed
It has not been the start to 2025 that the reigning Formula 3 Champions will have envisaged. PREMA Racing currently sit 10th and last in the Teams’ Standings with just two points so far.
It’s not the first time the team have made a slower start to a campaign. Memories of leaving Round 1 in 2023 scoreless aren’t far away, and the Italian outfit came back to win their fourth Teams’ title in five years.
Noel León, Ugo Ugochukwu and Brando Badoer have each experienced their own setbacks in the four races so far this season, but it’s very early in the campaign, and there’s plenty of time to turn things around.
Visiting tracks the two rookies are more familiar with will go a long way to helping speed that process up, and León earned his first F3 podium at Imola last season himself.
PREMA cannot be counted out of course. The team’s unmatched success in the Championship happened for a reason, and the team can steady the ship and return to familiar form.
The break in the season comes at a good time for them. They can regroup, assess things and dive into the data between now and Round 3 and hopefully for them, come out swinging on home soil.