F3 Feature Race Highlights | 2026 Australian Grand Prix

To the left of screen it's Ugo Ugochukwu. To the right your pole sitter Teofil Niall. And we are go for the feature race here at Australia. Good launch by Freddie Slater and he is on the attack of both Ugochukwu and Teofil Niall. Freddie Slater to the right of screen around the outside of Ugochukwu. Niall has the lead for now but Slater looked to get a very good run through Turn 2 and there he is. Freddie Slater going down the outside. Are we going to see him go straight into the lead? Teofil Niall doing his best to hold off the British driver. Goes a little bit deep into the braking zone but good defensive driving in the end from Niall. Yeah Slater, brilliant start. Youngest driver on the grid. Rookie Formula Regional Europe champion last year. He is going for it in this one. Now Stromstedt looking up the side of 13 and that's going to allow Taito Kato. Look around the outside. That's an absolutely exceptional opportunist move. It was Stromstedt on the attack but narrow entry meant he was vulnerable around the outside. Kato looking confident. Move of the weekend so far for Taito Kato there around the outside. Nicola Locorte actually had the worst getaway of anyone in the top 10. You can see the blue car there weaving left and right to try and block the cars behind but this was the right-hand side of shot. The number five of Slater. Great launch off the line and then pulling alongside, getting through here as he did yesterday. Look in the back of shot there. Stromstedt getting boxed in. Couldn't quite go anywhere and then Jin Nakamura two wheels on the grass. That left him vulnerable as well and then we headed down towards Turn 3. Yeah we saw the Red Bull livery of Finn McLaughlin go charging down the outside. Jose Garfias rejoining the circuit. That's where he got his puncture. Let's have the view from Slater pit. Slater got a solid move and then oh so close as Ugachuke came across but all the way alongside and then Ugachuke had nowhere to go. Teofil Niall had taken the inside line and actually Slater got a really good exit through Turn 2 as well. That allowed him to get alongside Niall but Niall's too experienced to let Slater go around the outside of Turn 3. Ever so slight roll from Teofil Niall. You can just see the tyres turning. That's Ugo Ugachuke going around the outside there. He had the DRS of Slater who dropped 1.2 seconds behind Niall and he was punished for it. Ugachuke now back behind his Campos teammate. We've got a bit of a match between the Campos drivers. Two returning drivers potentially favourites for the championship along with the driver Slater in third. Yeah Ugachuke's got the DRS here and here's how you're going to see how powerful it is. Ugachuke with a good exit there is going to go around the outside. Ugachuke hits the front of the feature race here That's a lovely move. LaCorte fast and qualifying. He doesn't quite have the race pace to match his qualifying pace. He's around the outside. Look, Strom said sideways through the middle, sideways through the exit. Can he get it done? Yes he can. Yes and he is now past Bruno Del Pino all continuing to hold that position. Bruno Del Pino has the fastest lap in this race currently in 10th but we have a train going all the way up to the likes of LaCorte in P6 who is trying to stay within DRS of Badawer as well. There you can see gaps to lead as to your left and Slater looks to be closing in a little bit here on Niall and Ugachuke. Here we now look at Taito Kato in the ART livery going to the outside. Mattia Colnaghi trying to show him a bit wide but that's brave from Kato around the outside at nine and he goes up to P7. Kato has been very impressive this year so far. It's only the second race of the year this season but he's looked confident, he's looked decisive, he's at good pace and now Strom says trying to get involved as well. Also goes past Colnaghi and that's a feature that we see in FIA F3 a lot isn't it Chris? One driver gets past then you have the momentum going backwards. Oh spin! Badawer spun. Badawer's off at the final corner just as we were talking about. LaCorte and Badawer look like he clipped the grass into the final corner there and Badawer just sent round into a spin. Yeah completely on his own. We know that he'd been passed by LaCorte a lap or so before but it's so easy to just be unsighted on the entrance to the last corner and drop a wheel and the gravity was lucky to stay out of the barriers there. They are right by the edge of the circuit but hey continues on he'll have to reset mentally and try and just get anything out of this race that he can from now. The yellow flag is still out so I'm not too sure we've had someone else in trouble and that's confirmation that we have. Nandavood Birambakdi has gone off. Is that at turn 12? Yes. Let's have a look. Yeah did you Chris? Your hypothesis was absolutely right. Just two wheels on the grass so easily done and did well to do a full 360 and carry on and not lose too much time and then the same lap through turn number 12 into the wall. Birambakdi out. All right together the front three. Maciej Gwadysh has been caught out a little bit there. He's going to have to be careful of Nicola La Corte behind in P5 but we are back green racing in the feature race for the first round of 2026 here at Albert Park. Ukachukwu leading his teammates Teofil Nall, Freddy Slater the Trident driver in third place and then a bit of a gap back to Gwadysh who will have his merest bull of the Blue Dams Lucas oil livery of Nicola La Corte there right in the middle of your view. Down to turns nine and ten we go. La Corte to the outside and sweeps his way into fourth place so the Italian driver taking advantage of that first DRS zone that we see active after the restart and has made a place and I think that was Jin Nakamura in the silver high tech who's run wide and now he is going to have the Van Amersfoort of Enzo Deligny to his outside but Jin Nakamura just holding on for now. Colnaghi did lose that place Delpino and now we go side by side into 12. Oh just about made it through Jin Nakamura and then wide in the background. Badawer on his recovery drive pushing hard side by side through 13. We're going to go side by side into the last corner. Oh good move. What a move there from Enzo Deligny going all the way around the outside that was almost a replica of Kato. Yeah Badawer getting a bad exit out the last corner so unfortunately things going from bad to worse as now that's the 31 of Gerard Schee fighting with the 14 of Hiyo Yamakoshi further back in the field and getting involved as one of the AIXs too. I think that's Barrichello. We've got a LaCorte noted for a full start and also Teofil Nial currently in second place as well always running wide. It's Giusti there on the brakes. Benavides goes around the outside here of Jin Nakamura. Is he going to make his move at turn nine? Yes he does. Benavides great stuff there to go through and up into 11th. Only one place away from the points and who was that that was taking the shortcut? Was that the likes of Badawer? Badawer here on the rear of him. This is in the final sector going into turn 12 one lap ago. Badawer that he went wide. It's gone again just turned in a little bit late. There's so much dirt on the circuit offline there that we saw it with Kanagi yesterday. We've just seen it with Badawer and then Badawer getting overtaken by his teammate Claro then also by the MP of Tapanen and then we headed down towards turn three and it just looked like Giusti tried to roll off the brakes to go around the outside and once again off the racing line. No grip to be had. Yep Giusti. Oh and Garfias off as well. Are we going to see a move made into turn 11? We are as La Corte goes by. Freddy Slater and Dams Lucas Oil driver is now on to the podium places. Great move there from La Corte. Could we see the Dams Lucas Oil team get their first podium in Formula 3? Look at this. Maciej Gwadys is there. Stromsted is there. They're all queuing up as well and now we're going to see a challenge to the inside from Gwadys who locks up the brakes almost into the back of Slater and Stromsted says thank you very much. I'll take that place around the outside. Taito Kato they're fighting away with Bruno Delpino in the orange and black Van Amersfoort and now Kato is going to go past his teammate Maciej Gwadys into turn one. Puts a car between himself and the number 16 of Delpino who goes around the outside there of Gwadys and Gwadys has just dropped down a few positions. We talked about momentum earlier Piers and that's an example of it. The rule is you must be stationary and within the box at the time of the lights going out and clearly the FIA don't think he was and if he actually had a move and moved there Stromsted through and now LaCorte fighting back squeezing contact. Yeah LaCorte that was always going to end in tears fighting so hard to try and get by on the inside trying to go into a gap that just did not exist. There's confirmation five second penalty for LaCorte. Currently he would be dropping outside of the points. Then this was it. 10 second penalty for Noah Stromsted for causing a collision. And then the two tridents coming on late with the 40.6s each and a look around the outside. I don't think you'll get that done first time Freddy. This is your first feature race in F3. You've won pretty much everything up till now but F3 is a whole different ball game. Could be second place here as Slater now goes to the outside of Teofil Nile into turn nine he goes and that's move complete from Freddy Slater. We've got a safety car in the final stages. Three laps to go. That will erode that gap and also be costly for Teofil Nile as we see the 23 off. That's Wu Hyun Shin. Oh wow sideways into the barriers at turn six. Ugo Ugochukwu will take us around the final corner and onto the start finish straight and it will be a first win for Ugo Ugochukwu in Formula 3. He starts his season with the perfect result in this feature race. Freddy Slater on the podium once again in Formula 3 as he begins his first full campaign and Taito Kato entering Formula 3 on his first weekend and putting ART onto the podium. That's a very good result with ART having two drivers in the top five positions. Ugo Ugochukwu putting a gap between himself and the rest of the field and led us home under that safety car at the end. Freddy Slater finishing in second place straight on the podium in his first full season. Taito Kato an immediate podium there in third. Now it's over to Ugo Ugochukwu to fly the flag for the States and he's doing them very proud. We're going to see a lot of these three on the podium this season. My intuition tells me Slater and Ugochukwu will be fighting the championship.