The F3 champion looking to repeat history in F2 - again

Take a look at the 2021 CIK-FIA EuropeanKarting Championship table, and these three team-mates from the Kart Republic squad leap out. Champion: Mercedes protege Kimi Antonelli. Third: Red Bull Junior Arvid Lindblad. And in between them as runner-up: Ferrari Driver Academy youngster Rafael Camara, subsequently 2024 Formula Regional European champion, dominant 2025 Formula 3 king, and set to fight from the start for the 2026 F2 title.

Camara – universally known as ‘Rafa’ – is 20 years old, from northern Brazil. While his career hadn’t enjoyed the same momentum as those of his karting pals, he has bloomed of late. Without doubt his is the name now identified as the one to watch in F2 this year. After all, he is following in the footsteps of Gabriel Bortoleto and Leonardo Fornaroli, his immediate predecessors as F3 champion. Like Camara, they won their F3 crowns with Milan-based Trident. Like Camara, they moved to Attleborough-based Invicta Racing for F2. Both then claimed the F2 title as rookies. Can the boy from Recife emulate that?

Motorsport was something initially sampled by Camara’s older brother. “My dad liked racing, but had never been in the motorsport world,” he recounts. “A friend of my father’s from his job, his son was driving and gave a chance to my brother to try, but my brother didn’t really like it. He did a year I think. I was going to watch when they were at the track. When my brother stopped, I said I wanted to start, but I was five so I was too young. Then when I turned six I asked my father again. From then we started in Recife, and after one year we moved to Sao Paulo, from there to the US and then Europe.”

His parents may have had no exposure to the sport, but Camara clearly inherited petrol genes from his maternal grandparents. Once his exploits began to grip the family, the stories from his grandmother emerged. In her late teens, Niege Rossiter raced touring cars on rough-and-ready street and road circuits around Recife in the early 1960s, sometimes co-driven by her father. She was identified as a talent, and was asked by the Brazilian magazine Quatro Rodas whether she aspired to racing at Interlagos – then, as now, the epicentre of Brazilian motorsport, but over 1650 miles south-west of Recife. “I confess that I do,” she replied matter-of-factly, “unless a handsome young man appears, someone I like. Because then I’ll end up going to the kitchen, which is my other hobby.”

Today, she’d have been put into F1 Academy. Instead, she went to her kitchen and put everything into the attic. “Before I started racing, it was not something I really knew,” smiles Camara. “Then I started to know more. She has her helmet, trophies and all the photos. It was a bit more dangerous because she was racing on the streets. She was saying that basically, if you were doing a mistake, you were going over the people! When I started she liked it a lot and she’s always supporting.”

At the end of 2021, Camara’s karting results had carried him into the orbit of Ferrari, which selected him for its scouting camp and world finals. Together with Ollie Bearman, who had just won the Italian and German F4 titles, he was inducted into the Prancing Horse’s Academy. “For me it was a big change in my career,” he relates. “With their support it was very nice for me to grow up as a driver and also as a person. We’ve been working well together.” Camara was already living in Italy for his karting – “I didn’t really have a home because I was all the time travelling and going to different places,” he explains of his childhood – and now moved to Maranello with new horizons: a move to car racing.

Camara (far left) at the 2021 Ferrari scouting finals; but can you spot the current F1 driver?

Photo by: Ferrari

He was placed with dominant team Prema Racing for 2022, but was twice hit that year by COVID-19. The first time, it forced him to miss what should have been his debut car racing weekend in the early-season UAE F4 Championship, and this almost certainly cost him a title that went to Charlie Wurz. Later in the year, he had to skip a German round: “It was not ideal – also with the travelling it was more difficult at the time – but it was OK because my main championship was F4 Italian and I didn’t have any issues and I was able to do all the season.” Camara finished third in both German and Italian, with Antonelli – his team-mate again – crowned in each. But Antonelli had a much bigger F4 testing programme under his belt, and had also graduated to the category with flying colours in late 2021.

“It was good for experience and learning things, alongside Kimi again,” acknowledges Camara. “He was more prepared I would say in F4 and I was able to learn a lot from him that year. During the year I was trying to learn all I could and by the end of the season we were more competitive and it was a good way to finish the season. In the races it was a bit of a mess, because I made some mistakes, but in terms of speed in quali it was a good step.”

Again they graduated together to Formula Regional for 2023, once more with Prema. This time Camara was fifth, with Antonelli champion. Camara stayed put for 2024 while Antonelli was rushed into F2, and this time it was the Brazilian who earned a title. “In the first year we started very well, the speed was certainly there, and on my side it was managing more the bad weekends,” he explains. “There were many points that were wasted, and it was a lot of up and down. I learned a lot as a driver how to manage a season and make sure you’re doing things in the right way, and in the second year I was able to put everything on the table, let’s say, and apply everything I’d learned.”

"It was a bit tough to leave [Prema]. It was really three years that made me complete as a person and as a driver, and I’m very grateful for everything that Prema made for me. But also Trident was another family! Not just in terms of results, but the vibe on the team was amazing" Rafael Camara

For the step to F3, which was introducing its new-for-2025 Dallara, Camara left the embrace of the Rosin family’s Prema team for Trident – and moved once again, to Milan. “It was a bit tough to leave,” he sighs. “It was really three years that made me complete as a person and as a driver, and I’m very grateful for everything that Prema made for me. But also Trident was another family! Not just in terms of results, but the vibe on the team was amazing.”

Trident team manager Giacomo Ricci was the 2006 Euro F3000 champion, so knows what his drivers need. “For sure Giacomo really helped me – the good results were because of his help,” reckons Camara. “It was a very nice time with Giacomo and all the engineers – I think they are together more than 10 years. And especially with the new car, everyone was trying to help each other to make sure we started in the best way possible. I think we managed to do that.”

They certainly did. F3 titles are frequently won after a multi-way title fight at the last round; sometimes on the final lap (as with Fornaroli). Camara had his wrapped up even before the final weekend at Monza: 10 rounds, five poles, four feature race wins. Was he surprised? “I think I was kind of surprised. Especially the new car, you don’t really know what to expect. We could have started P1 or PLast, we knew that. But the approach we had was very good, to make sure that whatever happened we would keep working hard. Also myself, I was never really thinking about the results or doing, let’s say, records, but just tried to make sure that every weekend I was doing my best.”

Camara dominated in F3 last year, winning the title with a round to spare

Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd

And now he’s heading to Invicta. At the time of our chat in late January, Camara had tested with the team in Abu Dhabi but was yet to visit the Attleborough workshop: “I’m going soon to make the seatfit and the new things for this year.” Does he realise that this Norfolk town on the Snetterton doorstep was the base for his great compatriots Emerson Fittipaldi and Ayrton Senna in their early years? “No – I had no idea,” he responds. “It’s a good place then!”

Camara does have experience of English teams from competing with Forza Racing in karting in 2019-20. “Most of the team at Invicta is English but my engineer is Spanish,” he adds. The guy to whom he refers is Pau Rivera, who has been there going back a decade to its previous incarnations as Virtuosi and Russian Time, and engineered Bortoleto and Fornaroli to their titles. Pressure then? “Always when you join something your focus is to win. For sure I will try to fight for the wins, for the championship, but I will just focus on the things I can control at the moment and make sure I’m the most prepared I can be for the season.”

Looking later in the year, surely he’s got his eye on a Ferrari FP1 runout. Camara laughs shyly. “Yeah, I mean it’s nice to drive an F1 car, but I still need to do a good job in the F2.” He almost certainly will.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the March 2026 issue and subscribe today. 

Camara is shooting for F1, but knows he must take aim at the F2 title this year

Photo by: Calloalbanese