Lessons, mentality and making gains: How I Race with Rafael Villagómez

Rafael Villagómez enjoyed a big step forward in 2025 with positive results arriving with a particularly strong second half of the campaign.

He’s looking to go even better in 2026 with Van Amersfoort Racing once more, but he talks to us about what he’s learned on his F3 and F2 journey so far and how he approaches his racing.

ADAPTING AND LEARNING

“I learn a lot from different sports, like football, tennis, even chess. And I try to implement it into racing a little bit because I love the strategy part, like anticipating a little bit.

“So, in racing, I try to use some of that, try to always be a little bit cleverer. I would say in that part is where I'm strong at - adapting.

“I watch a lot of videos from different drivers, and you learn and you always see that the ones that succeed are the most aggressive ones.

“Of course, there's a limit, but at the end of the day, we're here to race. Every weekend you learn something. Of course, F2 and F3 are pretty tough championships in terms of the whole package, tyres, the racing, the amount of laps you have to practice. So, of course, over the years, you're shaping up your driving style, your approach into each session.

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“It's changed a lot. If I look back, even within a year, how I was driving at the start of last year and how I was driving at the end of last year changed a lot. For me, the most important is to keep on learning and keep on adapting because you can have a great weekend, let's say, in Qatar, for example, but then within a few days, everything restarts from zero and you got to do it again.

“That's also one of the toughest things. Going into the weekend, forgetting what happened before and trying to do better the next weekend.

“Obviously, you debrief as a team every session, every weekend, but do you have an end of year thing where you look back and be like, this worked well, this didn't work well, this is what I want to keep going with next year.

MENTALITY

“It's more driven internally. There's a lot of reflection, you work with people outside of the team that help you be a better human, I would say. And that has helped me a lot. We go travelling all around the world and we go racing, it's very cool, but there's a lot of, let's call it in-between time - on planes or between races and sometimes you're alone. I would say one of the things that a lot of drivers go through is overthinking.

“It's pretty common. So it's good to do this kind of stuff, but it's also a limit. You need to have time away. Otherwise, you're going crazy. And that's why working with the right people or having the right people around you is always very good because they can guide you better. They've got different perspectives.

BALANCING THE CAR

“In terms of preference in the car, I like an oversteery car, it's always quicker. We've seen it everywhere, in F1, from Max for instance. There's a limit, of course and again, you've got to adapt. Some tracks are quick and some tracks are not quick. In one lap, that balance might be quick, but maybe over the race, it's not so quick.

“Barcelona is a perfect example. On a single lap, you cannot have the perfect balance. Because if you're looking too much for an oversteery car, then you're not going to make it around the whole lap with tyres in good shape.

“So that track is a perfect example of how well you need to adapt to a balance. And that preference is something that’s changed, to be honest. Each year it changes. You've got to adapt. Sometimes, it's a combination between the team and the driver.

“The team believes that this is quicker, but maybe you feel like, okay, I cannot drive it or maybe this way is quicker. So you need to meet in the middle.

“It’s super important because tyre degradation is big. So you've got to adapt within a race to different balances. So, it changes.”

WORKING WITH VAR

“It's easier because we know each other better. There's also more trust. So all of these things come a little bit easier, all of that stuff is built through the years working with each other.

“Because we improve the way we debrief and our feedback. Having been with them for so many ears now, we can understand exactly what each other means.”