Red Bull junior and Motopark driver Dan Ticktum took his maiden FIA European Formula 3 Championship victory in Race 1 of the Hungaroring weekend. The British driver started on pole on a drying circuit.
He lost the lead in Turn 1 when Prema’s Guanyu Zhou sneaked past taking the inside line, but immediately retook the lead as Ralf Aron pushed himself into second from seventh, dropping Zhou to third.
Behind, Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg made a rocketing start to be fifth from 11th. He then cleared Prema’s Robert Shwartzman for fourth but immediately lost the place to the Russian and also to Prema’s Mick Schumacher.
The Austrian pitted with a suspected issue which dropped him down the order, also promoting Motopark’s Juri Vips to sixth. At the front, Ticktum started to build a gap to Aron, who had a buffer to Zhou.
But the Estonian was handed a five-second time penalty alongwith Motopark’s Sebastian Fernandaz for a jump start. Aron had to build a five-second gap to fifth placed Schumacher, but he was only able to create a 4.2s buffer in the end.
With Ticktum winning the race at ease, it was Zhou in second and Shwartzman completing the podium – the Russian’s first podium and rookie win in the championship, with Schumacher in fourth and finally Aron in fifth.
Behind, Vips took his season’s best of was sixth keeping the cars of HitechGP’s Enaam Ahmed and Carlin’s Sacha Fenestraz at bay – the trio separated by 1.297s on the line, with HitechGP’s Ben Hingeley and Motopark’s Fabio Scherer completing the Top 10.
Carlin’s Nikita Troitsky was another gainer to finish 11th from 20th with front-row starter HitechGP’s Alex Palou dropping down to be 12th after a massive wheelspin at the start. He was followed by Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala.
Fernandez finished 14th but a five-second penalty dropped him to 16th behind Motopark’s Marino Sato and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Keyvan Andreas. Motopark’s Jonathan Aberdien survived a spin to finish 17th.
The South African led Carlin duo Devlin Defrancesco and Ameya Vaidyanathan as VAR’s Artem Petrov and Fortec’s Petru Florescu were the last finishers. The two non-finishers were Habsburg and Prema’s Marcus Armstrong.