Feeder Series Preview: Madrid
Written by Trisha Lynnette, Morgan Holiday
Formula 2 and Formula 3 head to a brand new circuit this upcoming weekend as F3 heads towards the season finale. DIVEBOMB overviews the weekend for both series.
F3 title fight reaches its conclusion at the Madring
The FIA Formula 3 Championship reaches its final round of 2026 at the brand-new Madring in Madrid, with Freddie Slater and Ugo Ugochukwu set to fight it out for the title across three races on the venue's Formula One debut weekend.
Slater arrives with a 15-point cushion over his TRIDENT title rival after a dramatic Italian Grand Prix, where the Briton retired from the lead at Monza after losing a wheel, only for Ugochukwu's own recovery drive from a first-lap spin to trim the gap rather than close it entirely. With 67 points still up for grabs across the weekend, Ugochukwu needs to outscore Slater by 16 points to snatch the title away on the final day.
Campos Racing team-mates Ernesto Rivera and Théophile Naël remain mathematically alive in third and fourth, sitting 65 and 66 points behind respectively, but both would need a near-perfect weekend paired with a disastrous one from the two leaders to have any realistic hope of the title.
Speaking after two days of pre-event testing at the new circuit, Tuukka Taponen described the Madring as "one of the most difficult tracks I've ever driven". The MP Motorsport driver's comments echoed the wider verdict from the paddock, with several drivers highlighting the combination of narrow margins for error, elevation changes and the physical demands of a lap around the 5.4 km venue.
There is also a change to the grid this weekend. Sixteen-year-old Nicolo Maccagnani, a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy, makes his Formula 3 debut for Rodin Motorsport in place of Christian Ho. His arrival takes the number of Italian drivers on the grid to five, alongside Brando Badoer, Mattia Colnaghi, Matteo De Palo and Nicola Lacorte.
Madrid's finale carries an expanded schedule to make up for the Bahrain round that was cancelled earlier in the year. Rather than the usual single qualifying session, the field will contest two back-to-back 20-minute sessions on Friday evening, the first setting the grid for Saturday's Sprint Race and first Feature Race, the second setting the grid for Sunday's second and final Feature Race of the season. Pole position in each Feature Race also carries two extra points, adding further incentive to a weekend already carrying the highest stakes of the year.
The championship picture
Freddie Slater leads the drivers' championship on 141 points, with Ugo Ugochukwu second on 126. Ernesto Rivera sits third on 76, just ahead of Théophile Naël on 75, while Brando Badoer, Taito Kato and Hiyu Yamakoshi are tied on 71 points, though all three have already been mathematically eliminated from title contention.
Campos Racing leads the teams' championship on 277 points, well clear of TRIDENT on 213. Behind the two leading squads, ART Grand Prix and Van Amersfoort Racing are tied for third on 155 points apiece, as the battle for the remaining places on the podium continues right to the end of the season.
Free practice opens the weekend on Friday morning at 09:50 CEST (08:50 BST), with the two qualifying sessions following that evening from 18:20 CEST (17:20 BST). Saturday brings the Sprint Race at 11:00 CEST (10:00 BST) and the first Feature Race at 17:55 CEST (16:55 BST), before the season concludes on Sunday morning with the second Feature Race at 09:40 CEST (08:40 BST).
With three races, two title contenders separated by 15 points and a brand-new circuit still finding its feet on a Formula 3 grid, Madrid offers one final opportunity for the 2026 championship to be decided in as dramatic a fashion as the season that has led to it.
Formula 2
Formula 2 heads to the Madring for Round 11 of their championship, directly following a weekend at Monza where Invicta Racing’s Joshua Dürksen won both the Sprint and Feature Races.
Those wins bumped the Paraguayan driver up to eighth in the standings, just one point off of seventh place. The rest of the grid is set apart from those drivers in the top five in the standings, the only drivers to have secured over 100 points so far this season. Nikola Tsolov continues to lead the championship over Dürksen’s Invicta Racing teammate Rafael Câmara. Gabriele Minì, Alex Dunne and Noel Leon complete the top five drivers.
Kush Maini, on 88 points, is in sixth place, the closest driver to making it into the top five but still 26 points off of fifth place.
Now the drivers head to a brand new track in Madrid, the Madring, where they’ll join F3 and Formula One in their inaugural race at the track. Following this weekend in Spain, F2 has one more round in September before sitting through another break before the conclusion of the season in late November and early December.
The Madring is a 5.416 km (3.365 mi) circuit, with 22 turns and four overtaking zones at Turns 1, 5, 11 and 17. Drivers will navigate the track on an even playing field as no one has ever raced there before, leaving more opportunities for chaos and drivers further down the field to succeed.
The F2 weekend kicks off on Friday with Free Practice at 11:05 local time in Madrid, with qualifying following later that afternoon at 15:00. The Sprint Race, where the top 10 drivers from qualifying reverse their starting positions, will take place on Saturday at 14:15, and Sunday’s full-length Feature Race will begin at 11:25.
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