It is a weekend for firsts as Motopark’s Juri Vips took his maiden FIA European F3 Championship victory in Race 2 after a hard-fought battle with HitechGP’s Enaam Ahmed.
The start of the race saw a huge crash involving Motopark’s Dan Ticktum and Carlin’s Ameya Vaidyanathan at Norisring. The Red Bull junior’s car stalled on the grid with multiple drivers avoiding him including Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala right behind him.
But Vaidyanathan went straight on to his rear despite having all the time to avoid Ticktum. Both managed to come out unscathed as the medical crew attended them, with the race being red-flagged to clear the debris.
At the road ahead, Ahmed took the lead after a slight contact with pole-sitter Prema’s Robert Shwartzman, whose race ended due to a suspension failure when his car touched the wall at the exit of Turn 2.
Ahmed led Prema’s Marcus Armstrong, Vips, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Keyvan Andres, Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg, HitechGP’s Alex Palou, Motopark’s Marino Sato, Daruvala, Carlin’s Nikita Troitskiy and Prema’s Guanyu Zhou during the stoppage.
The race resumed behind the safety car for two laps. Once it went green, Vips quickly pounced on Armstrong to take second as Andres kept his place while being targeted by Palou, Habsburg, Sato and Daruvala.
At the front, Ahmed came under tremendous pressure from a faster Vips who after a couple of laps trying, finally found a way past the championship leader at the Turn 2 hairpin to lead the race.
The Estonian then built on a commanding lead to take his first win in European F3 by 2.089s from Ahmed with Armstrong completing the podium. Andres in fourth registered his best result keeping Palou and Habsburg behind.
The HitechGP driver had cleared Habsburg on re-start in their battle, while Daruvala managed to see-through Sato on the penultimate lap to take seventh. The Indian lost places at the start when he had to avoid Ticktum.
Carlin’s Sacha Fenestraz had to fight his way into the points, much like Prema’s Mick Schumacher – the latter making up 10 places to score a point. The two cleared Carlin’s Nikita Troitskiy and Prema’s Guanyu Zhou in the process.
Both Zhou and Troitskiy lost places to Motopark’s Fabio Scherer as well who finished 11th with the Russian in 12th and the Chinese in 13th. Meanwhile, Vips also won the rookie trophy from Ahmed and Armstrong.
Positions 14-20: Ralf Aron, Jonathan Aberdein, Ben Hingeley, Julian Hanses, Artem Petrov, Petruc Florescu and Sebastian Fernandez (both Petrov and Fernandez received drive-through penalty for a jump start).
DNF: Shwartzman, Ticktum and Vaidyanathan.
UPDATE: Ahmed was deemed the guilty party in his clash with Shwartzman at the start of the race with the stewards handing him a 20-second time penalty. It drops him to 15th in the order, promoting Andres to third – the German taking his first F3 career podium.
Revised positions: Vips, Armstrong, Andres, Palou, Habsburg, Daruvala, Sato, Fenestraz, Schumacher, Scherer, Troitskiy, Zhou, Aron, Aberdein, Ahmed, Hingeley, Hanses, Petrov, Florescu and Fernandez.
