Feeder Series Preview: Hungary

Written by Jasmin Low and Vyas Ponnuri

The Feeder Series paddock will go again for one last time around the Hungaroring before hitting their annual summer break. With five in the fray in F2, and a potential championship to be decided in F3 in Hungary, DIVEBOMB brings you all the information ahead of the Hungarian round on the calendar. 

Formula 2

Up next on the F2 calendar is the Hungaroring, marking Round 10 of the 2025 season | Credit: Formula 2

Now well into the second half of the season, Formula 2 heads to Hungary for Round 10 of the 2025 championship. 

The Hungaroring sits not far from the nation’s capital, Budapest, nestled into a natural bowl and resembling a traditional karting circuit. At 2.722 miles (4.381km) long, the tarmac snakes through the naturally undulating terrain, hosting the F2 Sprint Race for 28 laps whilst the Feature Race is extended to 37 laps.

Overtaking in at the circuit is known to be difficult, as the tight and twisty layout features only one long straight, and two DRS zones. The first DRS zone runs along the start/finish straight, whilst the second provides a short overtaking boost through the descent from Turn 1 to Turn 2. As a result, Sector 1 is often the fastest of the three sectors. 

Turn 1 is the only heavy braking zone and prime overtaking spot at Budapest, before the drivers travel downhill until they reach Turn 3, gradually climbing their way back up toward the start/finish straight. The middle sector features a mixture of medium and low-speed corners before Sector 3 challenges drivers with its tight hairpin bends. 

A high downforce setup will be preferable for drivers this weekend, increasing grip and stability through the corners. Additionally, it will be important to keep the tyres in the right window over the course of the lap, as tyre degradation will play a major role in strategic and setup decisions over the weekend. 

Strong pace will be instrumental in securing the best chance of scoring points, placing high importance on qualifying, which will take place on Friday. Whilst overtaking may be difficult, last weekend at Spa-Francorchamps exemplified how drivers can move themselves up the field if they weigh up risk versus reward. 

Despite being a mainstay on the calendar, no driver has beaten the lap record of 1.26.268 set by newly-crowned Formula E champion Oliver Rowland, which was set in 2017 for DAMS, the same year F2 headed to Hungary for the first time. 

Rowland is mentor to none other than Arvid Lindblad, who will be Hung-ary for more this weekend. The Red Bull Junior placed second in last week’s Feature Race, but was disqualified for a breach of the Technical Regulations related to tyre pressure. 

Also looking to improve on his weekend in Spa is Richard Verschoor, who had led the championship heading into the weekend but left without scoring points in either race, ceding the championship lead to 2024 Formula 3 championship Leonardo Fornaroli.

Jak Crawford was another championship protagonist who left Belgium without adding points to his tally, remaining third in the Drivers’ standings and just nine points off of the championship lead. 

Crawford will be on the hunt for a good result this weekend | Credit: Formula 2

Last year, Paul Aron claimed pole position by just 0.068 seconds, beating Van Amersfoort Racing’s Enzo Fittipaldo to the top spot. The Estonian will return to the track in Formula 1 machinery this time around, competing Free Practice 1 with Sauber. 

Verschoor’s infamous bad luck made a comeback during the Sprint, as the Dutchman crossed the line with a two-second gap to Kush Maini in second, before being disqualified after the race. Maini inherited the victory, marking his maiden win in the championship.

Victor Martins put on an impressive display, nursing his soft tyres through to the end of the race to finish in P2 after Verschoor’s disqualification whilst those on the same tyre watched their pace fall away. 

Andrea Kimi Antonelli took advantage of a late Safety Car during the Feature Race, charging through from fifth to seal the race victory on fresh soft tyres and low fuel. Victor Martins made it a second P2 of the weekend whilst Verschoor rounded out the podium in P3. 

Victor Martins was on a roll last time out in Hungary | Credit: Formula 2

The Championship

Fornaroli leads the way in the Drivers’ Championship with 125 points, just three ahead of Verschoor in second. Crawford rounds out the top three with 116 points, leading Alex Dunne by two points.

Dunne held the championship lead in the hours following the Feature Race in Spa, before a post-race penalty stripped him of the 25 points granted to the race winner and dropped him to ninth place. Luke Browning rounds out a close top 5 with 113 points, just one behind Dunne. 

Last week saw a change at the top of the Teams’ standings, as Invicta Racing lead the chasing pack by 13 points. Campos Racing, despite struggling for pace in the dry at Spa, sit in second, whilst Hitech completes the top three with 163 points. 

Formula 3

Budapest plays host to F3 once again in 2025 | Credit: Dino Beganovic website

Formula 3 heads to Hungaroring for Round 9, in what marks its penultimate weekend of racing in 2025. In a year dominated by Trident’s Rafael Câmara, the Brazilian now heads into Budapest with his first shot at sealing the F3 title. 

It’s been that season for the Ferrari junior, who set the ball rolling immediately in 2025, taking three poles in a row to start the season, and winning the first two Feature Race outings in 2025. Taking his fourth pole and third Feature Race win of the season at Barcelona, Câmara solidified his advantage atop the standings, sitting 26 points clear of Campos’ Nikola Tsolov ahead of the Austrian round. 

Tsolov has emerged as the closest competitor to the rampaging Brazilian in 2025, securing three pole positions and two race wins in 2025. A third would follow in Austria, but the subsequent disqualification from the Feature Race for breaching technical regulations meant the Bulgarian racer was stripped of 25 valuable points to shore up his campaign. 

Failing to convert pole to victory in a damp Silverstone also cost Tsolov dearly, as he will now be looking to just keep the fight heading into the other side of the summer break, into Monza. 

Both drivers rode their luck last time around in Spa, with Câmara losing his qualifying lap — before having it reinstated, keeping him second on the road in qualifying, while Tsolov withstood a late blast of fast laps in qualifying to net seventh for the Sunday race. 

The leading pair’s deadlock over pole position finally broke in the Belgian sun, with AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides surprising the field to grab the top honours — and three points to add to his tally in a delayed qualifying session. It’s been a rollercoaster journey for the American, who returned to F3 earlier this season in Imola. 

While Benavides would have relished the start from pole around a mighty Spa-Francorchamps circuit, the F3 Feature Race wouldn’t get underway, with just two laps in trundling safety car speeds in the rain, before the stewards called out the red flag, and eventually cancelled the race. 

It means the drivers head into Hungary on the back of two Feature Races that haven’t reached full completion, with the Silverstone Feature Race cut short in similarly sodden conditions after 12 laps of racing. 

Hungary’s series of corners will be a test for the F3 brigade | Credit: Dutch Photo Agency/Red Bull Content Pool

The medium and high speed corners of the Hungaroring will make for a workout for F3’s contingent of 30 drivers. Having been described as a technical circuit in the lead-up to the weekend, the emphasis will be on track position and maintaining the tyres until the flag. 

It makes qualifying all the more crucial, and several contenders will be vying for pole in the 30-minute qualifying session on Friday. Apart from Tsolov, Câmara and Benavides, there remains the potential to see a fourth pole-sitter in F3 this weekend, with the likes of Hitech’s Martinius Stenshorne, PREMA Racing’s Ugo Ugochukwu, Campos racer Mari Boya and MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz set to be in the mix. 

The Hungaroring can throw up surprise results during the weekend, and you don’t need to look further back than last season, when Nikita Bedrin and Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak took a 1-2 finish for AIX Racing in the sprint race. The latter, now with Campos, will look to emulate his heroics from 2024 around this venue once again. 

The Championship picture

Trident’s Rafael Câmara can seal the F3 title in Hungary | Credit: Formula One

Trident’s Rafael Câmara has the first chance to seal the F3 title in Budapest. The Brazilian, who currently holds a 28-point advantage ahead of the race weekend, will need an advantage of 39 points at the end of the weekend’s races to get his hands on the biggest silverware. 

His first opportunity to do so would be in the Sprint, with 10 points on offer for the winner, and an additional point for the fastest lap. Should his closest competitors in Tsolov and Tramnitz fail to score, or have poor races, it would open up the opportunity for the Trident man to take home the title with three races to go. 

In the constructors’ standings, it’s a much closer battle, with the Italian outfit leading the way on 232 points, and Campos sitting in second just 11 points behind, snapping at their heels. With the trio on either team scoring plenty of points in the last few weekends, it looks to be a battle that will carry on until the season finale in Monza, unless either team’s form drops off dramatically. 

Third-placed MP Motorsport sit on 164 points, and while they are still mathematically in the fight, it will require a huge effort from their trio of drivers to get their hands on the silverware in Monza.