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Campos hails Ugochukwu’s win in Melbourne but rues missing out on a 1-2
Adrian Campos has praised both his Campos Racing team and their driver Ugo Ugochukwu after their victory in the Melbourne Feature Race.
Ugochukwu achieved his maiden Formula 3 victory with a dominant drive that at one stage saw him over seven seconds clear of the rest of the field.
Teammate Théophile Nael, who was trailing Ugochukwu closely for most of the race having started from pole, dropped to P12 in the final classification after receiving a five-second penalty for a false start.
For Campos, this left him with mixed feelings, as while they are delighted to start the season with a win, but missing out on a one-two result brought some frustration.
“It was a great race,” he said. “I mean we can't complain. To be honest, we were very confident of getting the one-two with both of our drivers.
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“But I think it was an extremely strict, or on the limit, penalty for Theo. It took away our chances of having both drivers on the podium. But still, it's still a win.
“I think, if I'm not wrong, we are leading the championship with Ugo. So it could have been a lot better, but still we can't complain. We can celebrate this result.”
Ugochukwu had been in stellar form not only through the post and pre-season tests with Campos, but also on Friday when he topped Free Practice in Melbourne by a commanding 0.427s.
The American driver had looked set for pole later that day before Nael pipped him by 0.027s.
For Campos, Ugochukwu’s form is not a surprise, and it’s what they expected from both him and Nael when they signed them up for 2026.
“That's what we are expecting from them all season,” he said. “This is why we worked so hard during the winter, and we are very confident that it's not only here, it will be like this the rest of the year.
“We want to continue on from what was happening last year. We ended up winning in Monza, and now we are continuing winning here. So hopefully we will extend this for a bit longer.
“Last year here in F3, we didn't start well. We had some issues in qualifying which compromised the whole weekend, and then we had a very wet last race.
“So it was not what we were expecting, but we knew the potential was there and the results were going to come.
“But again, we want to be strong throughout the entire season, not just here and we will work as hard as we can. So let's see what happens at the end of the year.”
In six of the previous seven seasons of Formula 3, the Drivers’ Champion has won a race in the opening round – with Leonardo Fornaroli in 2021 the exception.
When asked if this was a good omen for Ugochukwu and Campos, the team boss joked: “We should not change that then. It's something that we need to respect. If it's like this, we respect it."