First FIA European F3 pole on Friday, converted into a first win on Saturday in Race 1 for Ferrari junior and Prema’s Marcus Armstrong after a dominating performance from the Kiwi.
Armstrong led the way from lights-to-flag in the first race of the Norisring European F3 weekend, clocking much quicker than his challengers to take his maiden victory by 2.926s over Prema teammate Ralf Aron.
The Kiwi also finished as the top rookie. The Estonian on the other hand had a good getaway from third to leapfrog Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala, who made a slow start to drop to fourth behind Motopark’s Dan Ticktum.
However, the Force India protege fought back to take third from Ticktum at Turn 2 after the safety car period, as he started to pile the pressure on Aron. But the Estonian managed to keep second in the end by just the 0.385s margin over Daruvala.
Red Bull junior Ticktum had to then settle for fourth as he fended off early pressure from Prema’s Mick Schumacher. The German cleared teammate Robert Shwartzman for fifth, with the Russian leading Motopark’s Juri Vips.
The three drivers were only separated by 0.966s on the line as Shwartzman and Vips completed the rookie podium. Vips was followed by teammate Marino Sato, who made up seven places to finish eighth.
The Japanese driver managed to keep Prema’s Guanyu Zhou behind, while HitechGP’s Alex Palou made up 10 places to finish 10th keeping Van Amersfoort Racing’s Keyvan Andres at bay by 0.774s margin.
Another mover was HitechGP’s Ben Hingeley who finished 12th after starting from 21st while his teammate and championship leader Enaam Ahmed only managed a 14th place finish due to a spin at Turn 2 midway in the race.
Meanwhile, Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg and Motopark’s Fabio Scherer were on the receiving end of a drive-through penalty for a jump start which dropped them to 18th and 19th respectively.
The lone safety car in the race was brought out due to the crash of Carlin’s Sacha Fenestraz, who went airborne after colliding with Motopark’s Jonathan Aberdein at the start of the race.
Positions 11-22: Andres, Hingeley, Artem Petrov, Ahmed, Sebastian Fernandez, Aberdein, Ameya Vaidyanathan, Habsburg, Scherer, Julian Hanses, Petru Florescu, Nikita Troitskiy. DNF: Fenestraz.