Rafael Câmara has taken his first proper bite out of the Ferrari dream, logging his maiden Formula 1 mileage in a private test at the Hungaroring.
The reigning Formula 3 champion and one of the standout rookies in this year’s Formula 2 field climbed into Ferrari’s 2025 car, the SF-25, for two days in Budapest. For a driver who’s made a habit of arriving in a category and immediately looking like he belongs, it’s a significant tick in the right box — not a prize, but a signal. Ferrari doesn’t waste running lightly, even in private.
Câmara’s route here has been brisk. Since joining the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2021, he’s stacked titles in consecutive seasons — Formula Regional European followed by Formula 3 — and he’s carried that momentum into 2026 with Invicta Racing, the defending double champions in F2. Coming into the Canadian round this week, he sits second in the standings, just a single point behind Red Bull-backed Nikola Tsolov. That’s the kind of table that makes an F1 test feel less like a novelty and more like the next step in a plan.
The SF-25 itself is an interesting choice of classroom. It was Ferrari’s final car of the ground-effect era before this season’s regulation reset, and it wasn’t exactly a museum piece: seven podium finishes for Charles Leclerc across 2025, plus a China Sprint win with Lewis Hamilton. For a young driver, that matters — you’re learning the speed and the systems in a car that actually had edges worth exploring, rather than a mule built simply to circulate.
Câmara hasn’t put a time sheet out into the world, and Ferrari won’t be in a rush to invite comparison anyway. These sessions are about procedure as much as pace: how quickly a driver adapts to steering wheel complexity, how they describe balance changes, whether their approach looks like something the engineers can build around. Drivers talk about “feeling comfortable” and “learning a lot”, but the teams are listening for something more specific — clarity, discipline, and the ability to be fast without being dramatic about it.
He’s also not the only one getting face time in red. Dino Beganovic, another Ferrari junior, shared the test and was back in the SF-25 for the first time since running it at the 2025 Abu Dhabi post-season test.
“Very, very nice to be back in an F1 car with Scuderia Ferrari here in Budapest,” Beganovic said in a Ferrari social media video. “Amazing two days done. Great time to be back in the car.
“It’s been a while since Abu Dhabi, so really, really enjoyed it, like always. It’s always a fantastic feeling and I can’t wait for the next time.”
That’s the quiet subplot here: Ferrari’s talent funnel is active, and it’s starting to look crowded in a good way. Having two academy drivers in the car across the same test gives the team a cleaner internal picture — not a direct shootout, because conditions and programmes always differ, but enough to build a sense of who’s absorbing what, and how quickly.
For Câmara, the academy structure is clearly a big part of why he’s arrived at these moments prepared rather than overwhelmed. Asked recently about his time as a Ferrari Driver Academy member, he pointed to the parts of the job that don’t show up on Sunday afternoons.
“I joined Ferrari in ’21, part of the academy,” he said. “Since then they really helped me, especially in the championships, how to prepare, the whole championship.
“Also each weekend, the approach, and also preparing yourself outside of the track in the mental side, physical. Also with the commitment, I think, it really helped me to understand, and even having more responsibility. When you’re very young, sometimes, you don’t realise how important it is, but they really, really helped me in this side.
“It’s been a successful partnership. It’s been a good few years in my single seater career, and hopefully I can let them be proud of the job we’re doing together. Hopefully it’ll be another good year.”
That last line is doing a lot of work. Câmara doesn’t need to “look like an F1 driver” anymore — the paddock has already clocked his speed and his trajectory. What he needs now is a clean, credible F2 title bid to match the private testing steps, because the modern ladder is ruthless about timing. An academy can open doors, but only results keep them open.
Canada in F2 is next, and with the standings this tight, it won’t take much for the narrative to swing again. But regardless of what happens in Montréal, there’s no missing what Ferrari has just done: it’s put Câmara in its machinery, on a proper circuit, for a proper run. For a driver chasing the top step of the sport, that’s not just a day out — it’s Ferrari quietly checking how real the hype is.
