Prema’s Mick Schumacher made it three in a row in the FIA European Formula 3 Championship at Nurburgring, scoring his sixth win of the season.
The German had another good start from pole keeping Prema teammate Robert Swhartzman behind as Red Bull junior and Motopark’s Dan Ticktum lost a place to HitechGP’s Alex Palou at the exit of Turn 2.
It was a clean start at the back as well with no Turn 1 incidents. Immediately, Schumacher built on a good lead from Shwartzman as Palou pulled away from Ticktum who had a good buffer on Prema’s Marcus Armstrong.
There was only one change the in the lower half of the Top 10 in a fairly straightforward race with Motopark’s Juri Vips overtaking Carlin’s Sacha Fenestraz for sixth. At the same time, Schumacher built in a commanding lead over the Ferrari junior.
The German then eased to his third European F3 win of the weekend by 4.985s – his sixth of the season which is the most by a driver in 2018 to bring himself only three points behind Ticktum, who managed just fourth in the race.
Ticktum has 264 to Schumacher’s 261 with only six races remaining as Schumacher brought the gap from 24 to just three in the weekend. The podium was completed by Palou who tried his best to clear Shwartzman but the Prema driver had enough pace to pull away.
With Ticktum in fourth, Armstrong finished fifth from Vips as Fenestraz was seventh with Prema’s Ralf Aron in eighth followed by HitechGP’s Enaam Ahmed and Prema’s Guanyu Zhou to completed the Top 10.
The Chinese driver had little to do with Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg long way off in 11th fending off Motopark’s Jonathan Aberdein who had a back and forth tussle with Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala.
Position 11-21: Habsburg, Aberdein, Daruvala, Fabio Scherer, Keyvan Andres, Sebastian Fernandez, Artem Petrov, Marino Sato, Nikita Troitskiy, Ben Hingeley, Sophia Floersch. DNF: Ameya Vaidyanathan.