It was all-Prema in the first race of the Zandvoort weekend in the 2018 FIA European Formula 3 Championship with Ralf Aron beating pole-sitter Guanyu Zhou at the start.
Zhou led Prema teammates in Qualifying 1 on Friday, but the Chinese driver was taken on the line by Aron in a brave move from the startline going into Turn 1. The Estonian made the move stick on Zhou to lead the way in the 23-lap race.
The Ferrari junior tried hard to fight back Aron later but the Estonian’s defence was strong. Zhou tried a move on the main straight but was blocked by Aron which sealed his fate as he took his second win of the season.
The Estonian led a Prema 1-2-3-4 with Zhou settling in second while Mick Schumacher held off the pressure from Marcus Armstrong to his second podium of the 2018 season. Motopark’s Dan Ticktum also closed in on the battle ahead but had to be content with fifth.
Motopark’s Juri Vips was the biggest gainer on Lap 1 when the Estonian moved to sixth from ninth on the grid, leapfrogging teammate Jonathan Aberdein, HitechGP’s Alex Palou and Prema’s Robert Shwartzman.
With Vips in sixth, Aberdein held a train of cars behind him on a difficult circuit to overtake to register his best result of seventh with Shwartzman in eighth followed by HitechGP’s Ben Hingeley who cleared Palou on the line as well.
It was a non-points finish for all the Carlin drivers with Nikita Troitskiy in 11th ahead of Jehan Daruvala – both managed to clear Motopark’s Fabio Scherer on Lap 1. The Indian then took the Russian at Turn 1 but the latter retook the position later, on the same lap.
Positions 11-24: Troitskiy, Daruvala, Scherer, Ferdinand Habsburg, Artem Petrov, Enaam Ahmed, Sacha Fenestraz, Sebastian Fernandez, Marino Sato, Keyvan Andres, Julian Hanses, Ameya Vaidyanathan, Sophia Floersch and Petru Flosrescu.