Round 3 Post Qualifying Press Conference

FIA Formula 3: Welcome to Imola where it’s time for the post-Qualifying press conference with the top three from today’s session. In third place we have Noah Stromsted of TRIDENT, in second place, Santiago Ramos for Van Amersfoort Racing, and taking his first Aramco Pole Position Award and third consecutive pole in 2025, Rafael Câmara for TRIDENT. Rafael, congratulations. You had to make it count right at the end, just talk us through how that session unfolded from your point of view.

Rafael Câmara: I think the beginning was quite good. Everything went very smoothly. Unfortunately, we had the Red Flag in the second run where it cost us a bit of position. We were P14 before the last run, a freaky qualifying, and then we managed to put the lap together. Very happy with the result, three in a row so I will try and keep going like this with the momentum and see what we can do.

FIA Formula 3: When you saw the Red Flags come out and you were sat in the pitlane in P2, did you think it was over, or did you know you had some time left on the table?

Câmara: I was on the track, so I immediately asked my engineer how long we had left. So by the time he told me I was quite calm, and I knew we had another chance. Of course, you stay under pressure a bit more because you know you only have that lap. But I think we managed to do a good job and deliver a good lap.

FIA Formula 3: Three from three in 2025, you’ve got quite the streak going. How much confidence does this give you now going into the rest of the weekend?

Câmara: Of course it is a very good way to start. Already in Free Practice we knew we had the speed to fight for pole. I think it is a good thing to have, three in a row gives you some really good confidence. The races are a completely different thing, you need to look after the tyres. Especially here we have never done a long run, so I will be looking at it to know what I need to do and not have any surprises. I am looking forward to the Sprint Race, starting from P12 here is more tricky to overtake, so I will try to maximise the result. Sunday, I will focus ahead and try to take the big points.

FIA Formula 3: Congratulations for today. Coming to you Santiago, so close to making it Pole two years running around Imola, but a strong session for you, nonetheless. You seem to love this place.

Santiago Ramos: To be honest I was not really expecting it to be like last year, I was not expecting it to be this fast. I had some issues with the car in Free Practice. We were struggling, we couldn’t find exactly what was happening, it was quite strange. We couldn’t predict what was going to happen in Qualifying, we went out with the best mentality and hoping that the problem was not going to be there. We managed to put the first lap together and it was decent. In the second attempt we had the problem again, so we were quite worried about it in the third set. We knew we had to try to reduce the chances of having it again, I was avoiding some curbs and trying to keep the car on the black part, and at the end it was a solid lap. It’s a track I really like, I enjoy driving it since I came to Europe for the first time. Quite happy with the result, I think, as a team, the result was not the one we were expecting, but it’s not bad.

FIA Formula 3: When we had the Red Flags come out, did you think you’d gotten pole at that point?

Ramos: No because at that stage I was struggling with my car. I had my problems, I had to abort that lap anyways because I knew we were in trouble with that problem. I knew that most likely the session was going to restart. I was really worried about having the issue in the third attempt.

FIA Formula 3: We had a bit of a break between Bahrain and Imola, how nice is it to come back to racing with a result like this?

Ramos: I think it’s nice, especially after Bahrain where we also had some problems in Qualifying, it looked like it was going to be two weekends in a row that were going to be tough for us. Having so much time to think after what happened in Bahrain, you are just hoping to have a clean weekend and try to prove what we can do. We had it at the end, not exactly clean but the result is not bad.

FIA Formula 3: Congratulations. Thanks for waiting Noah, another top three in Qualifying for you and a strong result for the team. Are you happy with that final lap or was there time left out there today?

Noah Stromsted: I think there was some more left in it. I had a car spin in front of me in Turn 9 so I had to be a bit careful there, lucky not to have the Yellow or Red flag, because there was quite a queue where a few cars went off. For sure there was a bit left out there, but P3 is very good.

FIA Formula 3: How do you reset when there’s a Red Flag late in the session and you know you have time for one last lap?

Stromsted: I try not to think about it too much. I knew that I needed to have a pretty good lap because I was P20-something. I knew I needed to close that lap. It was quite good especially in my last sector, I think I was two tenths quicker than anyone, so that’s where I found most of the time.

FIA Formula 3: Another weekend in which you’ll be in contention for strong points in both races, how important will tomorrow be in terms of both securing points and preparation for the Feature Race?

Stromsted: I think tomorrow is quite important. This year we have not been scoring a lot of points in the Sprint Race, for different reasons, so tomorrow it will be important to not only score points, but to also understand how the car is and how it’s going to be in the race for Sunday.

FIA Formula 3: Thanks Noah, well done to everything.