QUALIFYING: Câmara on pole for fifth time in 2025 in Budapest thriller

Rafael Câmara took a big step towards the 2025 Drivers’ Championship, taking his fifth Aramco Pole Position Award of the season.

Under pressure heading into the final attempts of the day, the TRIDENT driver delivered a 1:32.510 to go less than a hundredth clear of his Campos Racing rival Mari Boya in second. Tuukka Taponen finished third for ART Grand Prix after a late improvement of his own.

Ugo Ugochukwu laid down the time to beat early on, setting a 1:33.436 on his first attempt for PREMA Racing. Noah Stromsted beat that shortly after to go quicker on a 1:33.054, with Laurens van Hoepen going up to second for ART, 0.055s down on the TRIDENT driver’s time.

Câmara had been P5 after his first laptime of the session, but his time was deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 4. He immediately returned to the pitlane complaining of too much understeer around the entirety of the lap.

Campos opted to hold their drivers back to run in the gap on an empty track. It looked to pay off for them in their first runs, with Boya going to the top of the times on a 1:33.013. Teammates Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak followed by going P2, 0.3s down, while Nikola Tsolov went to fourth after their first laps.

The trio returned to the pit lane while the rest of the field headed back out for their second set of attempts with half the session remaining.

Brando Badoer put PREMA to the top and teammate Noel León followed to go P2 momentarily. MP Motorsport’s Alessandro Giusti then posted a time to go quickest, until Charlie Wurz restored TRIDENT top of the pile on a 1:32.737. Ugochukwu followed across the line to go second, losing out on P1 by just 0.001s.

After the second flurry of laps, the top four were separated by just 0.089s, with Câmara fifth, 0.110s off his teammate’s leading time.

The Campos trio then delivered their second attempts with Boya returning to P1 on a 1:32.653. Inthraphuvasak went to eighth 0.241s down on the Spaniard, but Tsolov was left P15 going into the final eight minutes of the session.

Into the final attempts and Gerrard Xie delivered an improvement to go up to second for Hitech TGR, 0.010s off Boya’s earlier effort. Théophile Nael went to third a further thousandth behind the Chinese driver, but Tuukka Taponen then went to provisional pole by the same margin, 1:32.652 putting him 0.001s clear of Boya in second.

Câmara and Boya then set their final laps, and the Brazilian delivered pole position for the fifth time in 2025 on a 1:32.510, 0.008s clear of Boya who improved one final time to go second again.

Taponen wound up third ahead of Xie and Nael. Wurz was sixth ahead of Ugochukwu, Badoer, Giusti, James Wharton, James Hedley and Inthraphuvasak, who rounded out the top 12.

The FIA Formula 3 Sprint Race from Budapest is scheduled to get underway at 10:05 local time on Saturday.