MOTORSPORT – BULGARIAN Nikola Tsolov secured a tight victory yesterday in the sprint race of this weekend’s FIA Formula Three Championship, held in support of the Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2025 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.
Tsolov triumphed after starting from row three and following a pair of safety car periods during the race. He engaged in a heated battle with his closest rivals as he worked his way up the order, and then held on in the end to take the chequered flag for Campos Racing after 19 heated laps.
Tsolov took over as race leader on lap 11 and then had to fend off a fighting challenge in the closing stages from Briton Freddie Slater of AIX Racing. Tsolov did enough to secure the win in a time of 39 minutes 51.263 seconds. Slater followed not far behind as runner-up just 0.580s back, while Finn Tuukka Taponen of ART Grand Prix joined them on the podium 1.222s from Tsolov.
“Good race, again a win for me in the sprint,” said Tsolov, who claimed his fourth career win in F3.
“I think it was really difficult to be honest. I had to push a lot in the beginning to make up some ground from where we started in P5, and I think that compromised me a bit in the end, but I got saved by the Safety Car, which was a little bit lucky because I was struggling a lot before that.
“I am really happy. I am so grateful to the team for their hard work, and the fans that came here, there was quite a few, so a lot of fans. Thank you everyone!”
Briton Callum Voisin (+1.924s) of Rodin Motorsport and Dane Martinius Stenshorne (+2.939s) of Hitech TGR were also in the top five. Others to claim points in the F3 sprint were Tim Tramnitz and Alessandro Giusti of MP Motorsport, Christian Ho of DAMS Lucas Oil, and the Trident tandem of Charlie Wurz and Noah Stromsted.
F3 returns to action today with the weekend’s 22-lap feature race, flagging off at 12.55pm. Rafael Camara is set to start from pole position. It will wrap up the F3 season’s second of 10 rounds.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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