Academy Report: Sandro's Spanish Silverware

All three Williams Racing Driver Academy racers in Formula 2 and Formula 3 have reached the podium in 2025 after Alessandro Giusti continued his upward trajectory by getting P3 in Spain.

With Victor Martins taking the FW47 for a drive in his maiden FP1 and Luke Browning fighting at the top of the F2 table, there was plenty going on for our young stars.

Here's how our trio handled their trip to Spain.

Any frustrations of Victor's last race in Monaco were soon forgotten by his Friday in Barcelona. The 2022 F3 champion joined F1 champions on the track for Victor's first FP1 session.

Victor's busy day had him tour the track in the FW47 26 times in a day he called "crazy," as he smiled after stepping out of the car on Friday.

Sadly, a frustrating Qualifying session left him outside the top 10 for both Formula 2 races, and he'd have to start both the Feature and Sprint Race from the mid-pack.

Nonetheless, two smart drives resulted in points on both days. Saturday's Sprint saw his wheel-to-wheel confidence turn into a P5 classification against all odds after a late-race Safety Car created an incredible F2 race.

Victor's opening lap saw him shuffled back when Amaury Cordeel left him running over gravel to run P19 in the early race, but the fightback began there.

Retirements and intra-team crashes let our Frenchman reach P13 when a Safety Car slowed the race down. By switching to Soft tyres, Victor's final laps had him part of a four-car fight when he reached the top 10, and he completed an incredible pass on three rivals across just two corners in the final sector on his way to P5.

More Soft tyre expertise helped on Sunday. An early stop for Victor left him racing the final 19 laps on Pirelli's red-walled compound, but he maximised the tyre's performance to take P8 and leave Barcelona with eight valuable points.

The consistency of Luke's 2025 continued in Spain, where he enjoyed another points-scoring round, becoming one of only three F2 racers to score points over each weekend.

Putting his difficult Monaco starts behind him, Luke jumped from the second row to snatch the lead on the run to Turn 1 in the Sprint Race. A fierce fight with Jak Crawford at Turn 2 had the American racer pass in some thrilling wheel-to-wheel racing.

Frustratingly for Luke, a late Safety Car opened the door for those further down the pack to stop and switch to faster rubber in the final laps and left the frontrunners too vulnerable to defend.

Despite his best efforts, the fading tyres had our Briton fall from the lead to take a P6 classification and three points for his championship tally.

A disappointing Sunday meant those would be his only points from Spain. Repeated fights with Joshua Dürksen and Ritomo Miyata saw the stewards handing out penalties and left Luke with a broken front wing, effectively ending his race.

Sandro's brilliant run of top-10 finishes continued in style as our Formula 3 rookie enjoyed his best weekend in the series so far.

A P6 qualification meant he'd have a weekend lining up in the top positions for the Sprint and Feature races.

Two podium trips might've been Sandro's if not for a few centimetres of required avoiding action in a chaotic Lap 1 in Saturday's Sprint Race.

The leaders collided in the Turn 1-2 chicane, and Sandro took full advantage to briefly run in P2 before backing off to avoid the carnage in Turn 3.

Falling to P10 when the Safety Car appeared, some expert driving had him recover ground after the restart. He overtook teammate Bruno del Pino and Prema's Noel Leon in successive moves at Turns 4 and 5, then used DRS to pass James Wharton for P7.

That turned into P6 after Noah Strømsted retired, setting Sandro up for his special Sunday.

Another busy Lap 1 had our hopeful with two wheels in the gravel but avoiding retirement after being pushed wide at Turn 2, somehow retaining P6 in a frantic first tour.

That morphed to P5 as Finland's Tuukka Taponen retired, and Sandro got his own back on Martinius Stenshorne at Turn 1, who had passed him on the first lap to reach P4.

A late Safety Car left a five-lap dash to the line, and Sandro cleverly paced himself and his tyres to make a move on Laurens van Hoepen on the last lap. That clinched P3 for our French teenager and his first podium trip in support of a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

With Formula 1 heading to Canada next, our tripleheader trio have a well-earned break until they race in Austria at the end of June.

Lia Block will join Alex and Carlos in Montreal, though, with F1 Academy back for its fourth round.

Italian F4 returns in June, too, with Oleksandr 'Sasha' Bondarev ready to take on the Temple of Speed over 20-22 June when the series races at Monza.