PREMA Racing faced another challenging run as the FIA Formula 3 Championship weekend drew to a close in Imola. Lining up relatively early on Sunday morning for the series' feature race, the team was unable to battle for the points zone, suffering from heavy tyre degradation early in the race.
As a consequence, Ugo Ugochukwu, who was starting from P7 on the grid, progressively lost ground and slipped to 14th place in the end. Noel León, who took off alongside him in P8, suffered from similar issues, but also saw his car develop a technical issue, which caused him to drop back and eventually retire.
Brando Badoer, who was starting from the 15th place, got stuck in traffic in a notably tough venue for overtaking. Tyre degradation also impacted his run as he finished in a lowly P19.
#1 BRANDO BADOER
"A tough one here in Imola. Not a lot I could do, I just kept the pace of the drivers in front. We hit massive tyre degradation quite soon and just went backwards. We will try to bounce back after this by working as hard as possible, and let's see what we can do in the future."
#2 NOEL LEON
"Really difficult race as we had an issue with the engine since the beginning. It was quite difficult to fall in a good window, and we need to make sure we fix this to line up in a competitive way for the rest of the races."
#3 UGO UGOCHUKWU
"A bit of a tricky race. We had a positive start, and the early pace was not bad, but towards the end, we struggled a lot with tyre degradation, and we fell back quite a lot. We need to regroup and learn what went wrong to be in better shape for the next one."