Formula 3: Taponen on the podium in Monaco

On his debut in Monaco, Tuukka finished a brilliant second in the Sprint Race. Camara was out of luck in qualifying and in the Feature Race but still came away with points.

Maranello, 27 May 2025 – Tuukka Taponen finished second in the Sprint Race on his debut at the Monaco circuit and also came seventh in the Feature Race. Plenty of points therefore for the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy Finn, who is now fifth in the standings, 25 points behind the leader. Rafael was also tackling this track for the first time, but he had some bad luck and finished seventh in the Sprint and retired from the Feature Race.

Tuukka. “The weekend was much better than expected after how qualifying went,” commented Taponen. “At Monaco, starting from fourth and eighth places on the grid doesn’t make for an easy strategy. But thanks to a good start in the Sprint Race I managed to get up to second by the first corner and from then on, I knew I had a great chance of finishing on the podium and that’s what happened. I also made up a place in the Feature Race and I’m particularly pleased that I’ve scored points at six races in a row. It means I’m towards the top of the standings and have done well at various different types of track, which fills me with confidence for the coming rounds.”

Rafael. Camara adapted very quickly to the demands of the Monaco track, setting the fourth fastest time in free practice. But Rafael’s weekend got tricky in qualifying. “It was a disaster, because I had traffic on my last lap in the swimming pool section and I couldn’t do better than fourth in my group,” he explained. “Making matters worse was the 3 place grid penalty (because of an infraction when the red flag came out) and that dropped me even further down the grid. Starting in the middle of the pack in Monaco is definitely not ideal, but it was still fun to drive on a street circuit for the first time. I really enjoyed the feeling you get from driving there.”

Standings. Despite scoring very few points, Camara still leads the championship on 77 points, 13 ahead of Tim Tramnitz e 16 ahead of Nikola Tsolov, while Taponen is up to fifth on 51, one point behind fourth placed Noam Stromsted.