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Matteo De Palo delivered the defining drive of his FIA Formula 3 season so far, converting fifth on the grid into a hard-earned first victory in a tense Silverstone Feature Race. The TRIDENT driver combined early aggression with late defensive steel, surviving a final-lap restart and pressure from multiple rivals to secure the win.
Silverstone had already been a strong venue for TRIDENT, with Freddie Slater previously underlining the team’s pace in qualifying, as covered in our report on Slater’s first F3 pole at Silverstone. In the Feature Race, however, it was De Palo who turned that speed into the result that mattered most.
Polesitter Slater held the lead at the start despite a strong launch from Théophile Nael, while De Palo immediately moved from fifth to fourth. He then passed Louis Sharp at Vale for third before attacking Nael at Stowe on Lap 3, briefly creating a TRIDENT one-two.
De Palo’s momentum continued one lap later when he dived inside Slater at Stowe to take the lead. Slater later fought back, reclaiming first at the same corner after Nael had tried to challenge him at the Loop, but the race remained finely balanced at the front.
Behind them, Ernesto Rivera and Maciej Gladysz were among the drivers making progress, while Sharp’s race unravelled after a fierce fight with Nael. As the pack compressed, Rivera, Gladysz, James Wharton, Ugo Ugochukwu and Noah Stromsted all moved ahead of the PREMA driver in quick succession.
The Safety Car was deployed on Lap 18 after Ricardo Escotto stopped at the Loop with damage following contact with Nandhuvad Bhirombahkdi at Village. When racing resumed on the penultimate lap, only one racing lap remained.
De Palo defended from Slater and Nael but locked up at the Loop, bringing both rivals back into range. The two TRIDENT cars then ran side-by-side through Copse, making slight contact and dropping Slater to sixth. De Palo still had to resist Nael and Rivera, locking up again into the final chicane before keeping the car on track to take victory.
Nael crossed the line second but received a 10-second penalty for his role in the incident with Sharp, falling to 16th. Rivera was promoted to second, with Gladysz third, ahead of Wharton, Slater, Ugochukwu, Sharp, Stromsted, Kanato Le and Alessandro Giusti.
Ugochukwu continues to lead the Drivers’ Championship with 97 points, ahead of Slater on 78 and Nael on 60. Campos Racing remain top of the Teams’ Standings with 202 points, followed by TRIDENT on 161.
De Palo said: “Starting from P5 is not a guarantee that you can get this win, so doing it like this is even better.” FIA Formula 3 returns at Spa-Francorchamps from July 17-19.
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.
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