Nakamura Opens the Madring’s History on Top, But the Real Fight Is Just Getting Started

A circuit nobody knew, thirty drivers with zero reference laps beforehand, and a title fight being decided in the next few hours. That’s how Formula 3 kicked off its Madrid weekend: with Jin Nakamura setting the first benchmark name in Madring history, a red flag cutting the session short, and Ugo Ugochukwu and Freddie Slater reminding everyone that this free practice is only the appetizer for what’s coming.

A New Circuit, A Weekend Unlike Any Other

Before getting into what happened on track, it’s worth understanding the context. The Madring is a brand-new street circuit, built around the IFEMA exhibition centre in Madrid, running 5.416 kilometres over 22 corners combining sections of public and private road. No driver on the grid had any prior racing experience here beyond the pre-season test held in August, so this FP session doubled as the first real setup work ahead of qualifying later this same afternoon.

The weekend also carries an extra layer: with this year’s Bahrain round cancelled, the FIA decided to expand Madrid’s schedule to complete the planned calendar. That means two qualifying sessions on Friday afternoon, Saturday’s Sprint with the grid set by reverse order from the first qualifying result, the first Feature Race also on Saturday, and a second Feature Race on Sunday morning that will close out the entire 2026 season. With both the Drivers’ and Teams’ championships still up for grabs, every session this weekend carries a little more weight than usual.

The Opening Minutes: Everyone Flying Blind

The session got underway at 9:55am local time with 28 cars hitting the track, two of the thirty entered drivers didn’t join this first run. As expected on a layout with no prior history, the opening times were pure guesswork: Kato set the initial benchmark north of 2:27, nearly eighty seconds slower than what the field would eventually produce by the end of the hour. Little by little, as more rubber went down on the surface, times started dropping fast.

The Title Fight Was Already Felt in Practice

The most interesting part of this session wasn’t just who ended up on top, it was who kept trading blows throughout. Ugochukwu of Campos Racing and Slater of TRIDENT, the two central protagonists in the Drivers’ Championship decider, spent much of the hour swapping the benchmark time between themselves, barely leaving room for anyone else. Kato dropped to 1:52.026, Taponen answered by just 0.037, Kato returned to the front with a 1:51.567 fifteen minutes from the end, and that’s when Ugochukwu showed up with a 1:51.192 that gave him the session’s first real breathing room.

From there it turned into a constant back-and-forth. Ugochukwu trimmed more than half a second off with a 1:50.587, teammate Rivera slotted into second, and Clerot, after having an earlier third-place time deleted, worked his way back into the top three with about fifteen minutes left. Taponen and Rodin teammate Badoer also popped up near the top during that stretch of constant reshuffling.

The Finish: Nakamura Sneaks In When Nobody Expected It

With the clock working against everyone, Ugochukwu went back to the top with a 1:50.268, but Slater answered immediately by just 0.072. Deligny moved into second, 0.069 off the lead, and then Kato produced a 1:49.936 that made him the first driver ever to dip under 1:50 at this track. Ugochukwu ended up 0.064 off that mark, with Rivera just 0.002 further back, and Slater fourth at that point.

The lap that decided everything, though, was still to come. With less than two minutes left, Nakamura fired off a 1:49.835 nobody could answer, taking the top spot of the very first session in Madring history by just a tenth over Kato. Deligny improved late to slot into third with a 1:49.979, rounding out a practice podium split between two Japanese drivers and a Frenchman.

The Scare That Ended the Session Early

With under a minute remaining, Nicola Lacorte of DAMS Lucas Oil went off at Turn 9 and hit hard enough that race control first threw yellow flags and almost immediately followed with a red flag to end the session ahead of schedule. That froze the timesheet exactly as it stood at that moment, with no room for anyone to improve in the closing seconds.

Beyond the scare itself, which thankfully didn’t turn into anything worse, the incident makes one thing clear: on a completely new circuit, with zero prior reference for grip levels or the real limits of the track, the margin for error while pushing to find out how much the car has left is razor thin. And with this afternoon’s qualifying setting the grid for Saturday’s Sprint, that’s exactly the kind of pressure that could bite someone else before the weekend is over.

Who do you think has the edge heading into this afternoon’s qualifying, Ugochukwu or Slater? Let us know your prediction in the comments before the first chapter of Madrid’s title fight gets decided.

RESULTS — F3 FREE PRACTICE, 2026 SPANISH GRAND PRIX (MADRING)

Niccolò Maccagnani (Rodin Motorsport) and Gerrard Xie (DAMS Lucas Oil) did not set a time in this session.

Souces: Pit Debrief, FIA Formula 3, Formula Live Pulse, MADRING