Motopark’s Dan Ticktum came back from his horror startline crash to win Race 3 in the FIA European F3 Championship in a dogfight to the line with teammate Juri Vips at Norisring.
It was an incident-filled final race which was red-flagged right on Lap 1 when HitechGP’s Alex Palou collided with Carlin’s Nikita Troitskiy. The Russian’s front right touched the Spaniard’s left rear which spun him around causing a traffic jam.
Motopark’s Jonathan Aberdein & Marino Sato and HitechGP’s Ben Hingeley had nowhere to go in the melee. The race ran under safety car for few minutes and then it was red-flagged with debris still on track, helping the marshals to two away the mangled cars.
Palou and Sato managed to run still, but the former had a suspension failure to officially retire from the race. At the front, Prema’s Marcus Armstrong led the way from Ticktum, Vips, Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala and HitechGP’s Enaam Ahmed in the Top 5.
The rest of the places in Top 10 had Prema’s Guanyu Zhou and Robert Shwartzman, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Artem Petrov, Prema’s Ralf Aron and Carlin’s Sacha Fenestraz with Prema’s Mick Schumacher making up nine places to 11th.
The re-start only lasted for a lap when Van Amersfoort Racing’s Keyvan Andres retired after a hit forcing another safety car. The front positions remained intact but at the back, Aron and Fenestraz cleared Petrov for eighth.
The race was green again but there was another strike with Fenestraz this time coming to a halt after he collided with Petrov while jostling for track position. However, the briefest of moment helped Ticktum to get Armstrong for the race lead.
The Red Bull junior had a good exit at Turn 2 and passed the Ferrari junior at the Turn 3 approach when the safety car sign was pulled out. The British driver then survived the re-start as Armstrong came under tremendous pressure from Race 2 winner Vips.
The Estonian made it Motopark 1-2 after clearing the Kiwi at Turn 2. He then clawed into Ticktum’s lead and nearly passed him on the final lap, but then had to settle for second with a mere 0.057s separating the two.
He was also the rookie winner from Armstrong who completed the podium to keep the main championship lead from by one point from Ticktum. Meanwhile, Zhou cleared Daruvala to take fourth with the Indian under pressure from the other Prema drivers.
It was Ahmed in sixth before the final re-start but the British driver lost places towards the end of the race. Aron moved himself into sixth after clearing Shwartzman and Ahmed with the Russian fending off Schumacher.
The German also managing to get ahead of Ahmed – thereby making up 12 places from his starting position. Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg completed the Top 10 keeping Motopark’s Sebastian Fernandez behind.
Positions 11-16: Fernandez, Petrov, Julian Hanses, Sato, Petruc Florescu, Fabio Scherer. DNF: Fenestraz, Andres, Palou, Troitskiy, Aberdein, Hingeley. DNS: Ameya Vaidyanathan.
UPDATE: Schumacher was handed a 20-second penalty post race for causing a collision between Petrove and Fenestraz which ended the latter’s race. It dropped him from eighth to 15th, promoting Fernandez to 10th for his first-ever F3 points.
Also, Andres was handed a three-place penalty for Race 1 at Zandvoort for the contact made with Schumacher earlier in the race. The VAR driver’s race ended bringing out the second safety car.
Revised results: Ticktum, Vips, Armstrong, Zhou, Daruvala, Aron, Shwartzman, Ahmed, Habsburg, Fernandez, Petrov, Julian Hanses, Sato, Petruc Florescu, Fabio Scherer and Schumacher.
