MONACO MARKS LAST HURRAH FOR DUFEK

Two strong race performances at the blue riband event of the FIA Formula 3 schedule brought the curtain down on Joshua Dufek’s 2025 campaign, with the Austrian driver unfortunately having to step back from his drive with Hitech TGR ahead of the season’s halfway point.

Dufek headed to Monaco with optimism after improvements in the race pace of the #15 Hitech entry at the preceding round at Imola hinted at a potential upswing in results. Drawn in the second qualifying group on the basis of running an odd-numbered entry, the 20-year-old built on 17th place in a crowded practice session where all 30 cars were on track at the same time to take the eighth-best time, which would see him lining up ahead of several expected frontrunners in both of the weekend’s races.

Having avoided getting caught up in the almost-traditional first lap Monaco melee, Dufek gained a handful of positions early in Saturday morning’s sprint race, but then found himself mired in a train of cars on a circuit where passing, even in the smaller more nimble F3 machines, is difficult when drivers are evenly-matched. Crossing the line in 14th position was encouraging, however, as the Hitech driver proved able to run at a similar pace to those ahead of him.

There was no repeat of the opening lap chaos in Sunday’s longer feature race, but Dufek was again able to move up the order and, as the field was gradually whittled down by misfortune around him, eventually found himself challenging for a potential points finish. Even with one hand on a score, however, the Austrian was out of luck, as an errant wheel from championship leader Rafael Camara’s car bounced into his path and made contact with the #15 just in front of the cockpit opening before also damaging the front wing. Attempting to take avoiding action, Dufek was forced to concede the positions he had only just gained, but survived the incident to cross the line in 12th position.

Sadly, that would be the last action of the youngster’s F3 campaign, as a lack of funding put an immediate stop to any further participation ahead of round five in Barcelona.

“Obviously, it’s not an announcement I wanted to have to make this early in the season,” Dufek admitted. “Things were beginning to look up in the last couple of rounds, and I was pleased with my performance throughout the Monaco weekend, but motorsport is expensive and we simply don’t have the funds to continue. I’d like to thank those that have supported me this far, and the Hitech TGR team for what we achieved in 2025.”