Red Bull junior and Motopark’s Dan Ticktum beat Carlin’s Sacha Fenestraz to win Race 1 of FIA European Formula 3 Championship at Silverstone and retake the points lead.
Fenestraz made a good start from pole to lead the way as Ticktum fought his way around Prema’s Guanyu Zhou to second with the Chinese driver dropping to third. Prema’s Mick Schumacher had another good start to make up two places to fourth.
The German cleared Motopark’s Jonathan Aberdein and Prema’s Marcus Armstrong in the process as Motopark’s Juri Vips moved to seventh from 10th behind HitechGP’s Enaam Ahmed. Prema’s Robert Shwartzman also got into the Top 10 from 12th.
Meanwhile, Fenestraz continue to lead from a seemingly faster Ticktum who was trying all to penetrate through the Frenchman’s defences with Zhou holding third. However, Schumacher’s good run came to an early end after a puncture to left rear.
It helped Aberdein to move up a place with Ahmed and Vips also gaining as Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala got himself into the Top 10. The fight for the win then intensified up front with Ticktum leaving no chances to get Fenestraz.
He tried a couple of times and eventually made it stick around the outside at Stowe corner to take over the lead of the race with under five minutes remaining. Just as he took the lead, Zhou suffered same fate as Schumacher to retire due to a left rear puncture.
This helped Aberdein to a podium position as his teammate Fabio Scherer then got into the Top 10. While Ticktum led the way, an off for Prema’s Ralf Aron at Stowe called for a Full Course Yellow for a brief moment but it didn’t deter Ticktum by any means.
The Red Bull junior took his fourth win of the season to retake the championship lead after Armstrong was only sixth in the race. Fenestraz secured second scoring his first podium since the opening round of the 2018 season.
The Top 3 was completed by Ahmed after he cleared Aberdein upon FCY re-start with the South African also losing out to Vips to still secure his best result of the season. Armstrong was sixth from HitechGP’s Alex Palou.
The Spaniard had Shwartzman and Daruvala on his tail towards the end but managed to fend off both the drivers, separated by 1.287s as Scherer completed the Top 10 and score the final point in the race.
Position 11-20: Ben Hingeley, Marino Sato, Ferdinand Habsburg, Nikita Troitskiy, Sebastian Fernandez, Keyvan Andres, Ameya Vaidyanathan, Sophia Floersch, Charles Leong and Petru Florescu. DNF: Aron, Zhou, Schumacher and Artem Petrov.