Rafael Câmara "very happy" after "unexpected" F3 pole

Written by Morgan Holiday

Image Credit: Trident Motorsport

Trident's 2025 Formula 3 campaign got off to an incredible start in Melbourne, as Rafael Câmara and Noah Strømstead locked out the front row in Qualifying.

Their third driver, Charlie Wurz, qualified just a few places below his teammates in sixth, giving the Italian team the best joint result of the session by far.

Not only are Câmara and Strømsted both rookies, they were joined in the top three by another rookie, Théophile Naël. Naël set his fastest lap of the session to put himself near the top before having to see the stewards over an alleged unsafe release. His position was in peril after he was let out onto the track by his team with a blower still attached to his airbox, but the only penalty incurred was a 500 euro fine to be paid by the team, Van Amersfoort Racing.

Speaking to DIVEBOMB after qualifying, Naël commented on the unexpectedness of his top three finish.

"For us I was not expecting that much," he said. "To be honest it's my first race in Formula 3 so it was a total discovery for me, the change from practice grip to Qualifying grip. Pretty happy with the pace, but the wait is still very long, so let's see."

He's expecting the rest of the weekend to be more of a learning experience, saying: "I think there is still a lot to understand with this car, especially race pace like Noah said, we didn't have time to test with Medium tyres, so it will be full discovery tomorrow. Obviously, it should be raining on Sunday, so let's see. We are still working, we are still learning as well the car, so tomorrow is going to be a tough day.

Image Credit: Formula 2

For the polesitter, Câmara, finishing first in his first ever F3 qualifying session was also an unexpected result, even after topping practice earlier that day.

"I think for me it was unexpected," he told DIVEBOMB. "Especially in a new car, you never know where you're going to be until Qualifying. You never know what the other teams are doing.

"So yeah, very happy with how we started, but there's still a long way, so there's still a lot of jobs to do and we'll keep working hard."

Speaking about his day, where he topped both sessions, he said: “I couldn't ask for more. I think it was a really good start for the championship.

"Obviously still a long way to go. Always nice to be in P1 but still two races to go, Saturday and Sunday, and obviously just the first race of the Championship. So we keep focusing, head down and keep pushing and working hard.”

His teammate Strømsted concurred, pleased with a good result for himself and the team, but acknowledged there's a long way to go.

"It's great to start out like this," he said. "To confirm all the work we did over the winter has paid off. But it's a long season and for sure everyone is improving, so we need to keep working."