Freddie Slater took a hard-fought maiden Formula 3 victory in the Hungarian GP Feature Race, besting Ugo Ugochukwu for the win and, equally, the championship lead into summer break.
Tuukka Taponen was starting the race in pole position with the tied championship leader alongside him. Slater missed out on pole but started second and was looking to gain an advantage into Turn 1.
Luckily for Slater, his rival, Ugochukwu, was starting in sixth. However, with the chaos of F3 races, Slater’s chance to take the championship lead was not guaranteed.
Taponen made a strong launch off the line, but Slater was close behind as the duo went side by side into the first corner. Taponen held the lead, keeping himself ahead of the TRIDENT driver. Slater tried to dive down the inside of the MP driver, but the Briton briefly lost control on the curb, clipping his front wing on the back of Taponen’s MP.
Meanwhile, Ugochukwu made up a place in the opening lap and was close on the gearbox of Brando Badoer. However, his lunge was thwarted as a Safety Car was brought out after Maciej Gladysz and Gerrard Xie made contact and hit the barriers in Turn 13.
The Safety Car took the field through the pit lane, and Taponen was forced to pit after picking up a puncture in the contact with Slater in Turn 12. The MP driver came out of the pits in sixth.
Slater was put under investigation for the incident.
Not quite racing again
On Lap 6, Slater led the field to green, holding on to first into the first corners. A yellow flag was brought out almost immediately as Salim Hanna had stopped on track in the penultimate corner.
A Virtual Safety Car was brought out as the field went around Hanna’s broken-down AIX car to the left of the road.
On Lap 8, the field went green again, and he immediately built a gap between himself and Mattia Colnaghi behind. Badoer in third was under pressure from Ugochukwu, who was looking to pick up where he left off before the Safety Car.
By Lap 10, Ugochukwu was primed to make a move on Badoer; the Campos driver moved to the outside of Turn 2, taking the outside of Badoer and gaining on Colnaghi too. Ugochukwu broke late and managed to take both drivers in two corners, moving into second place.
Just 0.3 seconds separated the championship rivals, and with no further action after Slater’s incident with Taponen, it was a straight fight to the chequered flag for the duo.
Ugochukwu had the DRS with just 0.2s to Slater into Lap 12. The American driver was closing in rapidly but chose not to make a lunge on Slater. Ugochukwu moved to the inside but had to back out of the move as Slater defended.
Ugochukwu ran wide at the exit of Turn 12. He dipped two wheels into the gravel, which built the gap to 0.6s.
Kanato Le ran wide further back in the field, his ART coming to a stop as a yellow flag was brought out. DRS was disabled as a result, which neutralised the fight out front.
Contact for Barichello
Slater took the field racing once again as the VSC came to an end. Ugochukwu was closing in on the gearbox of the Brit as they trailed each other through the opening corners.
Further down the order, Fernando Barichello, Enzo Deligny and Yevan David went three-wide in Turn 1. Barichello went spinning round in the middle of the track, unable to get his car restarted.
A Safety Car was brought out in response to the incident with Barichello out of the race and Deligny and David in the pits trying to fix their cars.
On Lap 17, the Safety Car came in, and Slater restarted the racing once again. Ugochukwu was slightly slower off the restart, with the gap building to 1 second in the first lap back racing.
Ugochukwu tried to close the gap, but Slater was finding impressive speed in Sectors 2 and 3. On Lap 20, the gap was still over a second and the Campos driver faced the challenge of Badoer on his gearbox.
Slater made a slight mistake on Lap 21, which allowed Ugochukwu to move back into the TRIDENT driver’s DRS range.
Taponen and Theophile Nael were fighting tooth and nail for fifth place further back, while Ugochukwu was able to close the gap to 0.333s as the duo came out of Turns 6 and 7.
A final charge
On Lap 22, the Campos driver made a move down the inside of Turn 9, but Slater went into the corner defending, which forced Ugochukwu to back out.
In the midst of the tight battle between the frontrunners, Ugochukwu suffered a small lock-up in the first corner. The mistake allowed Slater to break the DRS and take a hard-fought maiden victory in the Feature Race.
Ugochukwu was forced to settle for second on the road and second in the championship fight.
Badoer crossed the line to finish on the podium, with Colnaghi and Nael rounding out the top five. Taponen ended his run in sixth, with Rivera and Wharton in seventh and eighth.
Louis Sharp and Christian Ho took the chequered flag in the final points positions.
READ MORE: Formula 3 2026 Hungarian GP – Feature Race Results
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