lirim zendelli

13th September 202013th September 2020

F3 Mugello: Piastri beats Pourchaire to title after Sargeant crash

Oscar Piastri was crowned the 2020 Formula 3 champion after the Mugello sprint race finale, overcoming a late charge from outside contender Theo Pourchaire after main rival Logan Sargeant retired from a first lap collision.

Sargeant started the race as the highest title contender in fifth on the reverse grid, while Pourchaire started in eighth and Piastri outside the points in 11^th. But Sargeant’s title challenge was ended at the second corner of the race when he was squeezed by Sebastian Fernandez into Lirim Zendelli. Sargeant and Zendelli both went off into the gravel, and despite Sargeant’s efforts he couldn’t make it back to the track and was out of the race.

As the safety car came out to recover Sargeant and Zendelli’s cars, Piastri looked set to take the title as he ran seventh with his only remaining rival Pourchaire behind in eighth. But at the restart on lap 4 Pourchaire immediately leapt past Piastri and then Jake Hughes for sixth as he tried to turn his nine-point deficit into an unlikely championship steal.

Theo Pourchaire, ART (Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

As the opening phase of the race unfolded, everything seemed to fall into place for Pourchaire’s title hopes. As he passed his ART teammate Aleksandr Smolyar for fifth and targeted the podium positions he needed to become champion, Piastri struggled for pace and was shuffled down to tenth by his own teammate Frederik Vesti.

But after Pourchaire passed Enzo Fittipaldi and Sebastian Fernandez to reach third place in the second half of the race, Piastri’s pace started to recover. The Australian took ninth from the struggling Smolyar at the same time as Pourchaire passed Fernandez, meaning that Piastri would still have enough points to win the championship if Pourchaire couldn’t improve to second.

With 1.5s between Pourchaire and second-placed David Beckmann on lap 17, it looked far from unlikely that Pourchaire would be able to take the position. But while Piastri’s pace was improving, Pourchaire’s earlier charge took its toll on his tyres and he was unable to make up much of the gap between him and Beckmann.

Meanwhile, Piastri continued picking off the lower top ten to make Pourchaire’s job even more difficult. On lap 18 Piastri passed Vesti for eighth place, then caught Fernandez as the ART dropped back through the field and took seventh place in a drag race to the line on the final lap.

Finishing seventh with Pourchaire third, Piastri won the championship by three points, while Pourchaire took the runner-up position from Sargeant by one point.

Liam Lawson, Hitech (Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull Content Pool)

The sprint race was won by Liam Lawson, who put in a commanding performance from pole to win by almost seven seconds from Beckmann. The win gave Lawson fifth place in the championship ahead of Beckmann, although both were kept out of the top four by Vesti.

Fittipaldi took his best result of the season just behind the podium in fourth, ahead of Richard Verschoor and Hughes. Behind Piastri and Fernandez, the final points were taken by Vesti and Smolyar, with Vesti also earning the bonus two points for the fastest lap.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	15
2	David Beckmann	Trident	12
3	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	10
4	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab	8
5	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	6
6	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	5
7	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	4
8	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix	3
9	Frederik Vesti (FL)	Prema Racing	4
10	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	1
11	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
12	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
13	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
14	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
15	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
16	Olli Caldwell	Trident
17	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
18	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
19	David Schumacher	Carlin Buzz Racing
20	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport
21	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
22	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
23	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System
24	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
25	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
26	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
Ret.	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing
Ret.	Lirim Zendelli	Trident

12th September 2020

F3 Mugello: Vesti wins feature race as Sargeant levels championship

Frederik Vesti beat Jake Hughes and Lirim Zendelli to victory in the Mugello feature race, as Logan Sargeant drew level with Oscar Piastri in the title standings.

With plenty of championship positions on the line, the race began with a relatively cautious start. Zendelli, Hughes and Vesti, starting from the top three, held their positions into the first corner, while most of the top ten behind them followed through more or less in order. However, Enzo Fittipaldi was shuffled down from his starting position of fourth off the line by Sargeant and Theo Pourchaire.

Zendelli and Hughes, battling for seventh in the standings, began to pull away from the rest of the pack in the opening phase of the race as both set fastest laps early on. While Zendelli initially held a one-second gap over Hughes, a mistake on lap 4 gave the HWA driver a chance into Turn 1 at the start of lap 5.

Zendelli held the position around the outside, but was unable to keep Hughes behind for long. After trying another move on lap 6, Hughes finally got by for first a lap later, hanging on around the outside to take Zendelli into the chicane after Turn 1.

This began a game of cat and mouse between the Trident and the HWA, as Zendelli came back at Hughes on lap 7 to retake the lead before being passed by Hughes again on lap 13.

Jake Hughes, HWA (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

This close fighting for the lead allowed Vesti to draw up enough to join the battle in the second half of the race. On lap 14 Zendelli went deep into Turn 1 trying to repass Hughes, and this put Vesti within a few tenths of the Trident. A lap later, Vesti moved around the outside into Turn 1 and moved ahead of Zendelli into second.

Vesti wasted little time in going after Hughes, and he tried to take the lead at the start of the next lap. Hughes held the inside into Turn 1 to see Vesti off, but a mistake from Hughes later in the lap gave Vesti the opportunity to take first place on lap 17.

Hughes briefly retook the lead on the penultimate lap with another overtake around the outside of Turn 1, but Vesti came back at him at the same corner on the final lap and got back ahead. With few overtaking opportunities later in the lap, Vesti was able to hold on and beat Hughes to his third win of the year.

Zendelli had held on to third for most of the race after dropping behind Vesti. But the consequences of his hard battle with Hughes earlier on meant that he ran out of tyre life in the later stages, and ended up losing third place to Pourchaire on the final lap.

Logan Sargeant, Prema (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

While Vesti battled for the race win, his Prema teammates Sargeant and Piastri were fighting hard to better their respective championship positions going into tomorrow’s title-deciding sprint race.

After getting up to fourth at the start, Sargeant was unable to keep pace with the top three and ended up fifth behind Pourchaire by the end of the second lap. As Pourchaire then set off in pursuit of the podium, Sargeant’s race settled into one with Fittipaldi to hold fifth place.

Sargeant stayed ahead for most of the race, but Fittipaldi got ahead on lap 17 as Sargeant struggled with oversteer from his fading tyres. Sargeant retook fifth on lap 19, but was unable to hold on to the place and Fittipaldi got back through on the final lap for his best finish of the season so far.

Finishing in sixth wasn’t such a loss to Sargeant, however, as his main rival Piastri failed to score at all. Relegated to 16^th on the grid due to a penalty from the Monza sprint race, Piastri’s job was to make as many moves as possible and try to salvage reverse grid pole for tomorrow.

But despite making early progress, picking off the likes of Matteo Nannini, Alex Peroni and Dennis Hauger in the early phase of the race, Piastri’s pace slowed after passing Richard Verschoor for 12^th on lap 13. It took Piastri another five laps to take 11^th place from Jack Doohan, by which point tenth-placed Liam Lawson was too far ahead for Piastri to reel in by the chequered flag.

Jack Doohan, HWA (Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull Content Pool)

With Sargeant scoring eight points for sixth, the two Premas are level on 160 points in the championship. Piastri is still ahead on results countback, but he will start tomorrow’s crucial reverse grid race just outside the points, while Sargeant will start from fifth place.

As for the other outside title contenders, only Pourchaire is still able to win the championship tomorrow. His podium has in fact bettered his chances, as the ART driver is now only nine points behind Piastri and Sargeant on 151.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	25
2	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	18
3	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	15
4	Lirim Zendelli (FL)	Trident	14
5	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab	10
6	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing	8
7	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	6
8	David Beckmann	Trident	4
9	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix	2
10	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	1
11	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing
12	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
13	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
14	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
15	David Schumacher	Carlin Buzz Racing
16	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
17	Olli Caldwell	Trident
18	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
19	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
20	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
21	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
22	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
23	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
24	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
25	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
26	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
27	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System
28	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport

6th September 20206th September 2020

F3 Monza: Hughes takes sprint race win as all three Premas retire

Jake Hughes took victory in another Formula 3 thriller at Monza, while teams’ champions Prema endured a nightmare race with Oscar Piastri, Logan Sargeant and Frederik Vesti all retiring after incidents.

The race started with Lirim Zendelli jumping from fourth to first off the line, while reverse polesitter Michael Belov slipped back to fifth and Hughes went from sixth up to third ahead of Liam Lawson. At the back of the grid, title contender Sargeant started his recovery from 26^th by climbing five places off the grid.

The opening laps saw Zendelli and Enzo Fittipaldi scrapping over the lead. Fittipaldi took the position on lap 5, but the two continued exchanging first and second until the run down to Rettifilo at the start of lap 8. Fittipaldi started the lap ahead, but as he defended the corner from Zendelli the two made contact and Fittipaldi dropped out of the fight with a punctured rear tyre.

Lawson then assumed the lead from Hughes as Zendelli dropped down the order as well. The Premas of Vesti and Piastri moved up into third and fourth respectively, having made steady progress from the bottom of the top ten, while Sargeant found himself in the points in tenth.

Enzo Fittipaldi, HWA (Sebastiaan Rozendaal, Dutch Photo Agency / Scuderia Ferrari Press Office)

Sargeant’s luck then seemed to improve dramatically on lap 10 as Piastri was spun around at Turn 1 by the attacking Clement Novalak, who spun Sargeant himself out of the points in yesterday’s feature race. David Schumacher and David Beckmann were both caught up in the incident as well, while Sargeant profited from the chaos to leap up to fifth place behind previous race leader Zendelli.

The debris at Rettifilo brought out a brief virtual safety car, but not before Hughes pulled off a well-timed move on Lawson to take the lead of the race. When the race restarted on lap 11, Sargeant continued making progress as Zendelli ran wide through the first Lesmo, gifting Sargeant fourth place and enough points to level the championship battle with Piastri.

Sargeant continued pushing to take third away from teammate Vesti. After narrowly avoiding contact on lap 17 when Vesti locked up into Turn 1, and with the likes of Zendelli and Theo Pourchaire closing in on the battling Premas, Sargeant dove to the inside into Ascari on lap 19 and squeezed Vesti out to guarantee the position.

However, the move ended horribly for both drivers as they made contact on the first apex of the chicane, leaving Sargeant with a puncture and Vesti with front wing damage, which proved terminal for both drivers.

Aleksandr Smolyar, ART (Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

With three laps left on the board, Pourchaire inherited third behind Lawson and race leader Hughes, and the podium remained this way until the chequered flag. Zendelli looked to have the pace to pass Pourchaire before the end, but was instead passed by the second ART of Aleksandr Smolyar on the last lap, and finished fifth behind the Russian.

Alex Peroni took sixth ahead of Pierre-Louis Chovet, earning his first points since debuting with Hitech at the last round in Belgium. Roman Stanek was eighth for Charouz ahead of Trident’s Olli Caldwell, and Richard Verschoor took the final point in tenth.

Heading now into the final round of the season at Mugello, Piastri maintains the eight-point lead he gained over Sargeant at the start of the weekend. Lawson returns to third in the standings over Pourchaire, with both still mathematically able to challenge for the title at 25 and 26 points adrift of Piastri.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	15
2	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	12
3	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	10
4	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	8
5	Lirim Zendelli	Trident	6
6	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing	5
7	Pierre-Louis Chovet	Hitech Grand Prix	4
8	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System	3
9	Olli Caldwell	Trident	2
10	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	1
11	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport
12	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
13	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
14	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System
15	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
16	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
17	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
18	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System
19	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
20	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
21	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
22	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
23	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
Ret.	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing
Ret.	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing
Ret.	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
Ret.	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing
Ret.	David Schumacher	Carlin Buzz Racing
Ret.	David Beckmann	Trident
Ret.	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport

5th September 2020

F3 Monza: Vesti wins as Piastri claws back title lead

Frederik Vesti took his second feature race win of the season at Monza, as his teammate Oscar Piastri recovered to the podium from 15^th on the grid to take back the championship lead.

The race started with a mixed-up grid as nine drivers including pole winner Theo Pourchaire were penalised for driving unnecessarily slowly to set up their final flying laps. Hitech’s Liam Lawson inherited pole ahead of Matteo Nannini and Jake Hughes, while Pourchaire dropped to sixth behind Logan Sargeant.

But despite losing pole, Pourchaire leapt back into contention for the win at the start. After passing Sargeant and Calan Williams for fourth off the line, the Frenchman then took third from Hughes in the opening corners. Second place followed on lap two with a pass on Nannini, as Pourchaire set the fastest lap to keep close to the leading Lawson.

Pourchaire caught Lawson on lap 4 and took the lead from the Red Bull junior. Setting another fastest lap in the process, Pourchaire began pulling away from the field with what looked set to be a dominant early lead.

While Pourchaire was lighting up the timing screen in front, Vesti was taking advantage of mistakes from the drivers around him to make steady progress through the field.

Starting from ninth on the grid, Vesti passed his teammate Sargeant for eighth on lap 4 after the American ran wide battling with Alex Peroni. He gained seventh place shortly after when Igor Fraga went off at the Rettifilo, then moved up to fifth when Peroni spun round Williams on lap 7.

On lap 9, Nannini collided with Lawson trying to take away third and retired with front suspension damage. The incident allowed Vesti to close up on Lawson, and on lap 12 he forced his way into third into the second Lesmo.

Vesti’s progress was briefly halted when Sebastian Fernandez spun off and brought out the safety car. But at the restart Vesti immediately pounced on Hughes to take second place, with just a second splitting him from Pourchaire.

After cutting the gap down to five tenths, Vesti took the lead from Pourchaire at Rettifilo with three laps to go, and led the ART home until the chequered flag.

Oscar Piastri, Prema (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

Vesti’s teammate Piastri took third place in a race of contrasting fortunes for him and title rival Sargeant.

After the qualifying penalties played out, Sargeant emerged as the luckier of the two as he was elevated to fifth while Piastri remained in 15^th place. But when the race began Sargeant seemed to lack pace compared to the cars around him. After losing out to Pourchaire and running wide battling with Fraga in the opening laps, Sargeant then went off at Rettifilo on lap 5 and dropped to 11^th, just in front of Piastri.

The two Premas jostled each other for position as they both inched their way up into the lower top ten. After Sargeant fought back to keep ahead of Piastri just after his mistake, Piastri got definitively ahead of the American on lap 10 while they fought over eighth place. Piastri then managed to put a car between him and Sargeant as he passed Lirim Zendelli for seventh.

At the safety car restart on lap 14 Piastri gained sixth place from David Beckmann. But more importantly for the championship battle, behind him Sargeant was tapped into a spin by Clement Novalak at the Della Roggia chicane and dropped right to the back of the field.

With Sargeant’s chances of scoring points effectively gone, Piastri’s sixth was already enough to return him to the top of the standings. But instead of holding steady, Piastri continued pushing forward. After taking fifth from Peroni on lap 18, Piastri then breezed past Lawson for fourth at the same time as Vesti took the lead from Pourchaire. Finally, Piastri caught and passed Hughes on the penultimate lap to move himself up onto the podium.

MONZA, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 05: Race winner Frederik Vesti of Denmark and Prema Racing, second placed Theo Pourchaire of France and ART Grand Prix and third placed Oscar Piastri of Australia and Prema Racing celebrate on the podium during race one of the Formula 3 Championship at Autodromo di Monza on September 05, 2020 in Monza, Italy. (Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Hughes lost a further place on the final lap, with Beckmann beating him to the line in fourth. Lawson finished sixth ahead of Zendelli, Bent Viscaal and Enzo Fittipaldi. Michael Belov finished tenth for Charouz for his first point in F3.

With Sargeant eventually finishing the race in 26^th, Piastri now has an eight-point lead in the standings, which is likely to increase tomorrow as Sargeant will be starting the sprint race well outside the points.

But despite Sargeant’s non-score, Vesti’s win and Piastri’s podium was enough for Prema to wrap up the teams’ championship with three races still to go.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Frederik Vesti (FL)	Prema Racing	27
2	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	18
3	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	15
4	David Beckmann	Trident	12
5	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	10
6	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	8
7	Lirim Zendelli	Trident	6
8	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	4
9	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab	2
10	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System	1
11	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
12	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
13	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
14	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
15	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
16	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
17	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
18	Pierre-Louis Chovet	Hitech Grand Prix
19	David Schumacher	Carlin Buzz Racing
20	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix
21	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
22	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
23	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
24	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System
25	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
26	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing
27	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
Ret.	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
Ret.	Olli Caldwell	Trident
Ret.	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport

30th August 202030th August 2020

F3 Spa: Sargeant bounces back with sprint race win

Title contender Logan Sargeant bounced back after engine problems in yesterday’s feature race to take victory in the Formula 3 sprint race at Spa.

Reverse grid polesitter Richard Verschoor held the lead into the first corner, while Sargeant rose to second ahead of Olli Caldwell due to Liam Lawson having a slow start and dropping back to fifth.

But despite getting off the line well, Verschoor was unable to drop Sargeant in the opening laps as he struggled again with straight line speed for his MP Motorsport car. Sargeant stayed within a few tenths of Verschoor until lap 3, when he made the move for first and took the lead of the race.

Meanwhile, Sargeant’s teammate Frederik Vesti was moving up through the order from fifth on the grid. After taking third from Caldwell while Sargeant was passing Verschoor, Vesti then overtook Verschoor himself for second on lap 4.

Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

The race was neutralised shortly after when Hitech’s Pierre-Louis Chovet went into the barriers and brought out the virtual safety car for two laps. When the caution was withdrawn on lap 6, Verschoor continued to fall down the order. The Dutchman lost third to Theo Pourchaire on lap 9, then dropped behind Lawson, Aleksandr Smolyar and Oscar Piastri in quick succession.

Meanwhile, Vesti was making strong progress to catch Sargeant. After being 2.1 seconds behind his teammate after the virtual safety car restart, Vesti cut the gap down to four tenths by lap 14 as Sargeant complained of fading tyres on the radio.

However, Sargeant was able to regroup in the final few laps and opened the gap back up to a second. Vesti made one final charge on the final lap, but couldn’t close up enough to make a move for the lead and finished runner-up across the line.

Lawson recovered from his poor start to finish third behind the Premas. After passing Verschoor for fourth, the Hitech driver put significant pressure on Pourchaire who was struggling with his tyres, and took third away on lap 12.

Theo Pourchaire, ART (Dan Istitene / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Pourchaire lost another place to his ART teammate Aleksandr Smolyar, who finished fourth for the second race in succession. On lap 15 Pourchaire was also passed for fifth by Oscar Piastri, who was charging forward from his own slow start to minimise the damage done by Sargeant’s win.

But just after moving into fifth, Piastri was given a five second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage when passing Pourchaire, dropping him to sixth behind the Frenchman in the final order.

Verschoor stabilised in seventh place by the chequered flag, finishing ahead of yesterday’s race winner Lirim Zendelli. His Trident teammate Caldwell had been running eighth, but fell out of the points after colliding with Alex Peroni. David Beckmann took ninth, and Sebastian Fernandez benefitted from the collision ahead to finish tenth.

After taking 17 points for victory and the fastest lap, Sargeant returns to the top of the drivers’ standings by seven points from Piastri, while Beckmann stays third ahead of Lawson by just half a point. Find the full F3 drivers’ and teams’ standings here.

FIA Formula 3 returns next week at Monza for the penultimate round of the season.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Logan Sargeant (FL)	Prema Racing	17
2	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	12
3	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	10
4	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	8
5	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	6
6	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	5
7	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	4
8	Lirim Zendelli	Trident	3
9	David Beckmann	Trident	2
10	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix	1
11	Olli Caldwell	Trident
12	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
13	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
14	David Schumacher	Carlin Buzz Racing
15	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
16	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport
17	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab
18	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
19	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
20	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
21	Andreas Estner	Campos Racing
22	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
23	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
24	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
25	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
26	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
27	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System
Ret.	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System
Ret.	Pierre-Louis Chovet	Hitech Grand Prix
Ret.	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab

29th August 202029th August 2020

F3 Spa: maiden win for Zendelli as Piastri retakes title lead

Trident’s Lirim Zendelli controlled the F3 feature race at Spa for his first win in the series, as Oscar Piastri capitalised on problems for title rival Logan Sargeant to retake the championship lead.

Zendelli got a clean start from pole to keep the lead at the start ahead of ART’s Theo Pourchaire and Aleksandr Smolyar. Two rows back, Zendelli’s teammate David Beckmann passed Sargeant to move up from fifth to fourth, and started targeting Smolyar’s podium position.

The early battles were neutralised by a virtual safety car on lap 3, following a series of punctures for Clement Novalak, Andreas Estner and Enzo Fittipaldi that left debris on track, and Alessio Deledda spinning into the gravel.

When the VSC was withdrawn on lap 5, Beckmann pounced on Smolyar to take third. Smolyar briefly retook the position, but Beckmann repassed the ART definitively on lap 7 and pulled out a gap to hold his place on the podium.

At the same time, Zendelli broke out of DRS range from Pourchaire and proceeded to pull away more with each lap. After adding another second over Pourchaire by lap 10, Zendelli continued pushing until the chequered flag, crossing the line almost five seconds clear of the ART in second and Beckmann in third.

Oscar Piastri, Prema (Bryn Lennon / Getty Images)

Behind the leading trio, Piastri finished fifth behind Smolyar in a potentially crucial result for his championship campaign.

Sargeant had stayed in fifth early on after being passed by Beckmann, and was gaining on Smolyar to move up to fourth. Meanwhile, Piastri was making his way up from the lower half of the top 10, passing Richard Verschoor and Liam Lawson to get up to sixth by lap 10.

With four seconds separating the two Premas, Sargeant then suddenly slowed on lap 13, losing two seconds with a suspected engine problem. Piastri closed up to within a second two laps later, before he breezed past Sargeant for fifth on the run to Eau Rouge.

Sargeant continued to nurse his car through the final laps despite saying on team radio that he didn’t think he could make it to the end. However, he lost another two positions to teammate Frederik Vesti and Trident’s Olli Caldwell before the chequered flag, and eventually finished in eighth. The result has given Piastri the lead of the championship again with five points in hand over Sargeant.

Lawson finished in ninth place after struggling with his tyres for much of the race, and Verschoor will start from reverse grid pole tomorrow after taking tenth place. Finally, Pourchaire gained the extra two points for setting the fastest lap within the top ten.

The two rookies making their debuts this weekend, Michael Belov and Pierre-Louis Chovet, finished 20th and 22nd respectively, while Estner finished 27th after his puncture on his return to F3.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Lirim Zendelli	Trident	25
2	Theo Pourchaire (FL)	ART Grand Prix	20
3	David Beckmann	Trident	15
4	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	12
5	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	10
6	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	8
7	Olli Caldwell	Trident	6
8	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing	4
9	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	2
10	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	1
11	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
12	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
13	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
14	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
15	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
16	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
17	David Schumacher	Carlin Buzz Racing
18	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
19	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System
20	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System
21	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
22	Pierre-Louis Chovet	Hitech Grand Prix
23	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport
24	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
25	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
26	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
27	Andreas Estner	Campos Racing
Ret.	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab
Ret.	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
Ret.	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing

10th August 2020

F3 Spain preview: Sargeant goes from hunter to hunted

Formula 3 returns this weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain, with Prema’s Logan Sargeant heading into the round as the new championship leader.

After winning the second feature race at Silverstone last weekend, Sargeant became the first driver to take the title lead away from Oscar Piastri, who had previously held it ever since his win in the first race of the season in Austria. That switch puts Sargeant in a tricky position this weekend, as his task has turned from catching Piastri to expanding the slender one-point lead over his Prema teammate.

Sargeant’s key advantage in this fight is his qualifying pace. The American has so far outqualified Piastri at all but one round this season, and took both pole positions at the last two rounds in Silverstone. However, Sargeant’s so far struggled to convert that advantage on race day, as he’s ultimately finished behind Piastri in every feature race bar his victory last weekend.

The key to Sargeant’s title campaign, then, will be a consistent weekend in which he can qualify and then keep ahead of Piastri. And with only four rounds left to go in the season, he will have to start doing so now before he runs out of time.

Oscar Piastri, Prema (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Having passed the halfway mark in the season, Sargeant and Piastri’s fight for the title isn’t the only battle getting tighter as the championship moves to its climax.

David Beckmann currently leads a close train of drivers all in the mix for third in the standings. On 82.5 points, the German has only a 13.5-point buffer separating him from Liam Lawson, Frederik Vesti and Theo Pourchaire. Each has been a race winner this year, and with one good weekend could even jump up to trouble the title protagonists—especially as Beckmann, Lawson and Pourchaire are this season’s only repeat winners so far.

Bent Viscaal became the only winner outside this group at last weekend’s sprint race. However, with 33 points between him and the top six of the championship, Viscaal is currently more in contention for seventh with the likes of Richard Verschoor, Alex Peroni and Lirim Zendelli, as well as Clement Novalak and Jake Hughes behind him.

Of these drivers, Viscaal and Hughes are the ones currently on a run of form. As well as Viscaal’s win, Hughes took his first podium of the year in the second Silverstone feature race, and both are expected to carry that momentum into Spain.

But with this cluster of drivers as close on points as the group just above them, it’s highly likely we’ll come out of Barcelona with a very different championship order to what we have going in.

Bent Viscaal, MP Motorsport (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

9th August 20209th August 2020

F3 Great Britain: Viscaal snatches win from Zendelli in frantic sprint race

Bent Viscaal took victory for MP Motorsport in the Silverstone sprint race, passing long-time leader Lirim Zendelli on the final lap.

Zendelli and Viscaal started second and third on the reverse grid and got a much better start than polesitter Ben Barnicoat to jump into the lead into Turn 1. While Zendelli and Viscaal pulled away in front, Barnicoat found himself under pressure to hold third from David Beckmann, Theo Pourchaire and Liam Lawson, who had all leapt past Oscar Piastri off the line.

The battles for first and third were halted on lap 2 when Lukas Dunner and Calan Williams came together to bring out the safety car. When the race resumed on lap 6, Zendelli and Viscaal once again moved clear of the pack with several seconds back to Barnicoat.

Despite being separated by just half a second for most of the remaining 15 laps, Zendelli held the lead from Viscaal without challenge until the final lap. After setting successive fastest laps and bringing the gap down to just a few tenths, Viscaal made a late dive to the inside of Copse on the final lap, catching Zendelli by surprise and taking the lead.

Zendelli fought back and the two ran side by side through the final corners. But although Zendelli briefly managed to get ahead, Viscaal hung on around the outside of the final corner and came across the line to win by just one tenth over the Trident.

Lirim Zendelli, Trident (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

As Viscaal and Zendelli fought over the lead, a fierce battle raged behind them for third place. Barnicoat put in an impressive performance to hold the position early on from the more experienced drivers behind him. But on lap 11, the British driver pulled off the track with a mechanical problem with his Carlin, elevating Pourchaire into third.

Pourchaire was immediately forced into defending from Beckmann. On lap 16 Beckmann made a move for third but ran wide and dropped back to fifth behind Lawson, while Pourchaire was shown the black and white flag for weaving in his defence.

Lawson then took up the pursuit of third place but was also unable to find a way past Pourchaire in the closing stages. On the final lap, after losing time attacking Pourchaire and running wide out of the last corner, Lawson was then repassed for fourth by Beckmann in a drag race to the line.

Pourchaire took third for his third podium of the season, ahead of Beckmann and Lawson. Piastri took sixth place after a tight battle late in the race with Jake Hughes and Frederik Vesti, who finished seventh and eighth respectively. Clement Novalak finished ninth, and Enzo Fittipaldi took the final point in tenth.

Theo Pourchaire, ART (Joe Portlock / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

New championship leader Logan Sargeant retired with damage after contact with Cameron Das on lap 10, meaning he now has only a single point in hand over Piastri with four rounds remaining in the championship. Viscaal’s victory elevates him from 14th in the standings to 10th.

In the teams’ standings Prema has 281.5 points, while second-placed Trident has extended its gap over ART to 18.5 points. Find the full F3 drivers’ and teams’ standings here.

Update: Fittipaldi was given a post-race penalty of five seconds for leaving the track and gaining an advantage when passing Das. The Brazilian drops from 10th to 17th, and Igor Fraga is promoted up to the points.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Bent Viscaal (FL)	MP Motorsport	17
2	Lirim Zendelli	Trident	12
3	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	10
4	David Beckmann	Trident	8
5	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	6
6	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	5
7	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	4
8	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	3
9	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing	2
10	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System	1
11	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
12	Max Fewtrell	Hitech Grand Prix
13	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
14	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix
15	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
16	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
17	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
18	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
19	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
20	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
21	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
22	Olli Caldwell	Trident
23	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
24	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
Ret.	Ben Barnicoat	Carlin Buzz Racing
Ret.	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing
Ret.	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
Ret.	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System
Ret.	Lukas Dunner	MP Motosport
Ret.	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport

8th August 20208th August 2020

F3 Great Britain: Sargeant controls feature race for first F3 win

Prema’s Logan Sargeant took his first Formula 3 win in the Silverstone feature race, controlling from the front after breaking away early.

Sargeant got a good launch from pole position to hold the lead into the first corner. Behind him, second-placed starter Liam Lawson was slow away and was passed by Jake Hughes starting from third.

While Hughes was occupied with getting past Lawson, Sargeant immediately set about opening a gap in front. By lap 7 the American was already 2.5 seconds ahead of Hughes, and managed to maintain the same distance for the majority of the race.

The gap only increased in the closing stages as Hughes’ tyres started to lose grip, with Sargeant running more than three seconds clear in the final four laps. Hughes eventually fell back to within half a second of Lawson, although he just managed to hold off the Hitech to take his first podium of the year in second.

Jake Hughes, HWA Racelab (Dan Istitene / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Lawson crossed the line in third, having held the position throughout a race-long battle with Frederik Vesti. Lawson appeared to struggle with his tyres all through the race and after the opening laps a train was already forming behind him including Vesti, Theo Pourchaire, David Beckmann and Bent Viscaal.

But despite Vesti’s pace advantage, Lawson was able to successfully defend against the Dane’s attempts at overtaking him. The time lost trying to pass Lawson then left Vesti vulnerable to Pourchaire behind, and on lap 9 the Frenchman tried a move through Vale. Pourchaire briefly got ahead into fourth, but Vesti was able to retake the place and Pourchaire ended up losing out to Beckmann as well.

After being told by his engineer to get after Lawson and commit to a move, Vesti set successive fastest laps and caught the Hitech again in the second half of the race. However, he was still unable to make a move stick and had to settle for fourth ahead of Beckmann.

Pourchaire finished sixth in the end, just holding off Oscar Piastri through the final corners with help from yellow flags for a collision between Sebastian Fernandez and Matteo Nannini at the back of the field. Piastri managed to recover back into the points after trouble in qualifying yesterday, although he ran out of laps to make the most of a late-race turn of speed.

Viscaal finished in eighth place, with Clement Novalak ninth and Lirim Zendelli taking reverse grid pole for tomorrow in tenth. Lawson scored the additional two points for fastest lap.

Sargeant’s victory and Piastri’s finish in the lower half of the points means Sargeant now takes over the lead of the championship by six points from his teammate.

Update: Novalak received a post-race five-second penalty for running off track and gaining an advantage, dropping him out of the points to P13. Zendelli was promoted to P9 and Ben Barnicoat to P10 for his first point of the season and reverse grid pole. Nannini also received a grid penalty for tomorrow’s sprint race for hitting Fernandez.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing	25
2	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	18
3	Liam Lawson (FL)	Hitech Grand Prix	17
4	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	12
5	David Beckmann	Trident	10
6	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	8
7	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	6
8	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	4
9	Lirim Zendelli	Trident	2
10	Ben Barnicoat	Carlin Buzz Racing	1
11	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
12	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix
13	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
14	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
15	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System
16	Max Fewtrell	Hitech Grand Prix
17	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
18	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System
19	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
20	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
21	Olli Caldwell	Trident
22	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
23	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
24	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
25	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
26	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
Ret.	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
Ret.	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
Ret.	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motosport
Ret.	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix

13th July 2020

F3 Hungary preview: Piastri looking in his mirrors as rivals close in

FIA Formula 3 returns this weekend, heading to the Hungaroring in Budapest for the third round of the season.

The 2020 championship got off to an excellent start at the Red Bull Ring double header, with four first-time winners in each of the four races creating a tight battle at the top of the drivers’ standings.

Renault junior and Prema driver Oscar Piastri still leads the championship with 44 points after the opening two rounds. However, he hasn’t finished on the podium since his win in the opening race of the campaign, and in each of the two sprint races so far he’s struggled to make progress through the reverse grid field.

Oscar Piastri, Prema (Carl Bingham, LAT Images / FIA F3 Championship)

Meanwhile, his teammates Frederik Vesti and Logan Sargeant have closed up behind him and are only one good result away from taking the title lead.

In Hungary, Vesti needs to capitalise on the momentum of his feature race win last weekend and take the fight to Piastri again. Sargeant meanwhile must take the pace that’s yielded two second place finishes so far and battle to the top step of the podium this time.

But it’s not just his fellow Premas that Piastri will have to watch out for in Budapest. David Beckmann is sitting just behind them in the standings after a double podium in Spielberg last weekend, and the Trident team generally has emerged as Prema’s nearest rival.

Beckmann and Lirim Zendelli both have the pace to be genuine threats for victory this weekend, while Olli Caldwell showed no qualms about battling with Piastri at the Red Bull Ring last time out.

Frederik Vesti, Prema (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

While the battle rages for the lead of the championship, there are a couple of drivers further back who will be looking to reset their own campaigns as we move on to Hungary.

Sebastian Fernandez would have been hoping for a lot more than six points and 13^th in the standings after storming to the first pole of the season in Austria. His only top ten finish came with ninth place in the second Spielberg sprint race, although this was largely gifted to him by Jake Hughes and Liam Lawson crashing out in the final laps—prior to that, Fernandez had dropped down the order after running wide while battling with Zendelli for eighth.

As for Hughes, he will also be glad to finally see the back of the Red Bull Ring. His collision with Lawson last Sunday capped off a troubled start to the year—after a technical problem left him 28^th in the season opener, Hughes’ best result is half a point for tenth in the red-flagged second feature race.

The good news for both Hughes and Fernandez is that while neither came away from Austria with the points they expected, both showed that their form this season is a lot higher than their championship standings suggest. Given a clean weekend, both drivers have the potential to trouble the frontrunners for victory at the Hungaroring.