The iconic Imola circuit played host to a dramatic and unforgiving Feature Race for Round 3 of the 2025 FIA Formula 3 Championship, where Kiwi driver Louis Sharp showed flashes of pace and tenacity but ultimately slipped out of the points in a rollercoaster contest that left little room for error.
Lining up fifth on the grid after a strong showing in Saturday’s Sprint Race, where he finished a season-best P4, Sharp was poised for another top-tier result and eager to build momentum after a difficult start to the season.
As the 30-car field charged into Turn 1 under blue skies, it was Trident’s Rafael Câmara and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Santiago Ramos leading the way from the front row. Sharp got away cleanly and made a tidy move early to elevate himself into fourth, settling in just behind ART GP’s Tuukka Taponen.
The opening laps quickly revealed a fierce pace at the front. Câmara wasted no time reclaiming control, executing a clean pass on Ramos to take the lead by Lap 4.
Behind them, Sharp showed strong form and even laid down the fastest lap of the race with a 1:34.936, signalling his intent to challenge Taponen ahead.
However, the Kiwi soon found himself under pressure from Trident’s Noah Strømsted, who made a move stick on Lap 6 to demote Sharp back to his starting position in fifth.
From there, the battle intensified. While Câmara and Ramos pulled clear with a staggering pace advantage—half a second faster per lap and nearly four seconds ahead of the chasing pack—Sharp’s race became a defensive affair.
Teammate Roman Bilinski, running close behind in the other Rodin Motorsport car, eventually passed Sharp in what became a spirited intra-team scrap.
Just as the race began to settle, chaos struck. A collision between Ivan Domingues (VAR) and Brad Benavides (AIX Racing) sent Domingues into a spin and off into the gravel, triggering a brief Virtual Safety Car and earning Benavides a 10-second penalty for his role in the incident.
The race resumed on Lap 13, and Sharp began to slip backwards from there. A bold move from Campos Racing’s Mari Boya on Lap 14 pushed Sharp down to seventh, and it quickly became apparent that the Kiwi was struggling with tyre degradation.
Boya surged ahead, picking off Bilinski to take fifth, while MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz soon joined the party, breezing past Sharp with the aid of DRS.
It was the beginning of a downward spiral.
By Lap 18, MP Motorsport driver Alessandro Giusti had also worked his way around Sharp, who fell to ninth. One lap later, Bulgarian driver Nikola Tsolov followed suit, and the Rodin driver was now clinging to the final points-paying position in tenth. But the closing stages were relentless.
Ramos reclaimed the race lead from Câmara with a late-race dive, sparking a shift in dynamics at the front as Strømsted, clearly the fastest driver on track, began to close in. Further back, Sharp’s grip on the top ten was slipping.
ART GP’s Laurens van Hoepen squeezed past on Lap 20, knocking Sharp to 11th, just outside the points. With Martinius Stenshorne closing in fast and DRS enabled, it was a tense final lap for the Kiwi.
In the final corners of the race, Stenshorne completed the move, relegating Sharp to 12th place and ending a hard-fought but ultimately fruitless feature race for the Kiwi, who had looked poised for so much more in the early laps.
At the front, Ramos took a thrilling victory for Van Amersfoort Racing, ahead of Trident’s Strømsted and early race leader Câmara, delivering a double podium for Trident and maximum team points (34). Taponen and the charging Boya completed the top five.
Rodin Motorsport teammate Bilinski salvaged four points in eighth, while Sharp’s early promise was left unrewarded, finishing outside the top ten in what was a frustrating day for the Kiwi.
Sharp will be looking to regroup and rediscover the consistency and composure that marked his early-season expectations as the championship moves forward.
Imola proved once again that in Formula 3, raw pace must be matched with race-long resilience—and Sharp, despite the setback, has shown he has both the speed and the spirit to bounce back.
Header Image: James Gasperotti Photography
