Benavides shocks the field to take AIX Racing's maiden F3 pole at Spa

Vyas Ponnuri
Jul 25
5 min read

Written by Vyas Ponnuri

AIX Racing's Brad Benavides put his name up in the lights for AIX Racing, bringing home the team's first F3 pole in a session of surprises and shocks, with one driver breathing a massive sigh of relief as the 30-minute F3 qualifying session in Belgium came to an end.

Benavides took his maiden F3 pole position | Credit: Formula 3 via X

Running further back in the field for most of the session, Benavides lit up the track with a stellar 2:04.253 lap time, going a tenth quicker than Trident's Rafael Câmara. The F3 championship leader's heart rate spiked late in the session, his quickest lap deleted and then reinstated in the final minute of qualifying.

The Rodin Motorsport duo of Callum Voisin and Roman Bilinski put their cars onto the second row for Sunday's race, setting themselves up for a potential chance at victory, and adding to their respective tallies in 2025.

McLaren juniors Martinius Stenshorne and Ugo Ugochukwu took fifth and sixth, with the former recovering from track limits deletions earlier in the session to sit comfortably for Sunday's race.

Campos' Nikola Tsolov, a three-time pole-sitter in 2025, took seventh on the road, ahead of teammate Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, while Charlie Wurz made it two Trident cars in the top ten. Bruno del Pino rounded out the top ten, with Wurz's teammate Noah Strømsted and the returning Freddie Slater on the front row for the Saturday sprint.

AS IT UNFOLDED

Drivers jostled for track position multiple times in the session | Credit: Formula 3 via X

Formula 3's customary 30-minute qualifying session got underway at 19:10 local time (17:10 GMT), after heavy fog delayed F3's sole free practice session earlier this morning. A revised schedule saw free practice take place from 14:00 local time (12:00 GMT), with qualifying pushed back after F2 and Formula One's respective sessions.

Campos' Mari Boya came into qualifying on the back of topping the revised 30-minute free practice session, ahead of Stenshorne and del Pino.

Trident racer Strømsted was the first to take to the mighty Spa-Francorchamps for the half-hour session, the Belgian circuit draped in sunshine, well into the evening hours on one of F3's most important rounds in 2025.

As the times rolled in thick and fast, drivers were eagerly pushing, looking to gain all the time they could. Van Amersfoort Racing's Théophile Naël went wide into Turn 1, flirting with the gravel trap on the exit.

Lap time deletions came thick and fast during the first flying laps, with the likes of Boya, Stenshorne, Bilinski, Louis Sharp and Noel León losing their quickest laps after crossing the proximities of the circuit.

It was Ugo Ugochukwu who initially set the benchmark time of 2:05.791, but he wouldn't stand a chance to championship leader Câmara, who took the honours at the top of the time sheets with a 2:05.557, as he looked for his fifth pole of 2025.

The Trident racer's lap time remained untroubled even as drivers set their second flying laps in the first half of the session. Campos racer Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak put himself second, sitting under two tenths shy of the championship leader's lap time. Teammate Nikola Tsolov elevated himself to fifth on the road.

The likes of Stenshorne and Bilinski recovered from their setbacks to place within the top ten, while MP Motorsport's Alessandro Giusti set a time good enough to be in the top three, as the sunshine dimmed on the circuit, giving way to cooler track temperatures.

A starring name in the top 10 was Hitech TGR's Freddie Slater, returning to an F3 car for the first time since the Bahrain round.

One driver yet to set a representative lap time was León, the PREMA racer losing his second quick lap due to track limits, once again.

Running an unconventional strategy, the Van Amersfoort Racing duo of Naël and Santiago Ramos went into the top three, taking advantage of the clear track and the track evolution to move up. Naël managed to move past Câmara's fastest lap, placing himself at the top of the standings.

With just under ten minutes to go, the drivers put on a fresh set of tyres to take their final runs, in an attempt to improve their track position and chances for the weekend's pair of races.

Boya, the first to set a quick lap in the pack, usurped from 14th to the top of the pack by four tenths of a second. However, it was Tsolov and Stenshorne who jumped ahead, setting times in the 2:04s, before AIX Racing's Brad Benavides put his name at the top, setting a 2:04.253.

Championship leader Câmara became the latest victim of track limits, losing the lap that took him to second on the road behind Benavides. While the Brazilian debated over the radio, race control reinstated his lap, relieving him.

As the clock ticked down, the entire pack of 30 drivers scrambled to find a clear piece of track. No driver wanted to lead the queue, leading to a situation of all drivers racing each other to the flag, as the clock ticked down.

In a situation that resembled more of a rush hour traffic jam, drivers went into the Bus Stop chicane side-by-side, before lining up and setting off on their final flying laps.

With 40 seconds to go, the likes of Ugochukwu, Ramos, Naël and Câmara found themselves with enough time for one final push. While Ramos found a lap to take himself up to tenth, his joy was short-lived, with his fastest lap time deleted, demoting the Mexican down to 25th.

But nobody would manage to displace Benavides at the top, with the American racer taking AIX Racing's first ever pole position in F3, and his first in the championship. With Slater securing 12th, it meant he would start Saturday's reverse-grid sprint from the front of the field.