Kimi Antonelli sends message to Rafa Camara after Ferrari junior’s outstanding Formula 3 title win

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Kimi Antonelli is one of the few Formula 1 drivers who exist today who never completed a full Formula 3 season before reaching the top.

The Italian driver’s debut season has been a mixed affair, with recent results not going his way too much at Mercedes.

Antonelli’s one-year contract with the Silver Arrows expires at the end of 2025, and he’s yet to find out whether he will be on the grid next year.

Sitting seventh in the drivers’ championship, he has rarely flattered. In Miami, he claimed a sprint pole, and in Canada, he took a first podium, but other than those flashes, he has faced a steep learning curve.

Antonelli has one thing Lewis Hamilton never did, with his predecessor believing that he was ready for Formula 1 at the tender age of 18.

Mercedes face a problem after Antonelli admitted ‘I’ve been struggling’ ever since a rear suspension upgrade was introduced to his car. It’s unlikely to be the entire cause of his problems.

READ MORE: Mercedes and Kimi Antonelli both ‘surprised’ by one specific low point during his maiden Formula 1 season

Kimi Antonelli congratulates Rafa Camara for ‘super deserved’ 2025 Formula 3 title

Although Mercedes may ‘regret’ one Antonelli career decision, he did achieve a lot on his way to the top at such a young age.

Before graduating to Formula 2 with PREMA in 2024, Antonelli competed in the Formula Regional European Championship (FRECA).

At the age of just 16, he claimed the title by 39 points, accumulating 300 total points – 127 more than his teammate at the time.

Two years on, and that teammate has just been crowned a Formula 3 champion with one more race left to go in the season.

Rafa Camara is a Ferrari-contracted driver who has won four feature races in 2025. At the age of 20, he’s two years older than Antonelli.

Naturally, the next step for him to take would be Formula 2, and considering that the team he just won his title with (Trident) also operates there, he’s likely to move up and continue with them.

READ MORE: Toto Wolff will ‘almost certainly’ take one Kimi Antonelli measure to keep a Mercedes seat open for Max Verstappen

What happened to Rafa Camara in FRECA after Kimi Antonelli and PREMA moved on?

After sitting alongside Antonelli in 2023, Camara went on to lead the PREMA team in 2024, and he proved to be very capable of doing so.

After taking seven victories in 20 races, he wrapped up the title having failed to score points just twice all season – both at a miserable round in Austria.

Six times he failed to score points in Formula 3 this season, but he was still confirmed as champion with one round to go, in advance of the summer break, in impressive fashion.

It now means that he has six months to prepare himself for graduation, and as has been seen before, he might even find himself in a Formula 2 car before the end of the current campaign.

Such is the gap between the end of the Formula 3 season and the start of next year’s Formula 2 tribulations, he will be eyeing up as much racing action as he can get his hands on to remain sharp.