Leonardo Fornaroli was calm in the end to win sprint FIA F2 race in Spa-Francorchamps, as Noah Stromsted wins in F3.
F2:
It was a great start by Fornaroli from third, as he took the lead on the run down to Turn 1, with pole-sitter Goethe also losing out to fellow front row starter Amaury Cordeel, dropping him to third. However, the Safety Car was soon signalled with Championship contenders Luke Browning, Jak Crawford and points leader Richard Verschoor colliding at the exit of Turn 1.
It left the Hitech TGR driver in the gravel, while Verschoor spun at Eau Rouge before retiring in the pit lane. Crawford also returned to the pits but was able to continue on. Racing resumed on Lap 4 of 18, but a piece of Josep María Martí’s front wing flew off following his slight contact with Goethe on the opening lap. The Spaniard was now coming under pressure from his Campos Racing teammate Arvid Lindblad.
Behind them, Alexander Dunne overtook Ritomo Miyata for P8 down the Kemmel Straight. Out in front and at the start of Lap 6, Cordeel was 0.4s behind Fornaroli. The Rodin Motorsport driver looked to make a move to Les Combes, but the race leader held him off. There were several battles going on as Lindblad was being attacked by Minì for P6 down the Kemmel Straight, but the Briton kept him at bay.
Fornaroli managed to get out of DRS range on Lap 8, with Cordeel now coming under pressure from Goethe and Victor Martins. But Goethe’s squirrelly moment going up Eau Rouge put Martins right on his back. The Frenchman reeled him in before using the DRS to take third on Lap 9 down the Kemmel Straight.
Onto Lap 10 and Goethe had fallen into the clutches of Martí, Lindblad, Minì, Dunne and Roman Stanek, all within DRS range of one another. Martins’ charge continued on Lap 12 as after slowly closing in on Cordeel, he went round the outside of the Rodin #16 at Les Combes, but the two made contact, sending the Belgian into the gravel.
It brought out the Safety Car with much of the field deciding to switch to the Soft tyres. Fornaroli, Martins, Goethe, Minì and Cian Shields were the only ones who chose to stay out on their Mediums. Green flag racing was resumed on Lap 14 of 18, with Minì getting ahead of Goethe for P3 down the Kemmel Straight.
After taking a couple of corners to warm up their Softs, Martí, Stanek and Dunne all got past Shields at Les Combes. Dunne then dived to the inside of Stanek at Turn 1 on Lap 15, while Martí was being held up by Goethe. Out in front, Fornaroli was escaping, and was 1.4s clear of Martins. Onto Lap 16, Martí, Dunne and Stanek started battling, allowing Goethe to pull away, with the Czech driver getting ahead of his Rodin rival for P6 at the end of the Kemmel Straight.
The soft tyre runners were struggling to make any more positions on the front runners heading on the penultimate lap. But any attempts they were planning to make were soon curtailed as a Safety Car was deployed, with Sami Meguetounif having stopped on track on the Kemmel Straight.
It meant the Feature Race ended as the Safety Car was withdrawn, giving Fornaroli a second consecutive Sprint Race victory following his Silverstone triumph, with Martins and Minì taking the other two spots on the podium. Goethe had managed to hold of Martí for fourth, with Stanek sixth for Invicta, Dunne seventh for Rodin and Miyata taking the last point in eighth.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1949085326951002268
UPDATE: Following the conclusion of Saturday afternoon’s Spa-Francorchamps Sprint Race, Campos Racing’s Arvid Lindblad has been penalised for causing a collision. Car 4 of Lindblad collided with Hitech TGR Car 8 belonging to Dino Beganovic at Turn 1 on Lap 14 at the Safety Car restart.
After the race, the Stewards investigated the matter using video evidence and also heard from both drivers and Team Representatives. It was determined that the driver of Car 4 had made minor contact with Car 8 at the apex of Turn 1 and was the one blame for the incident.
As a result, the Stewards handed a five second time penalty to Lindblad, dropping him from ninth to 17th in the final classification. The Briton was also originally credited with the fastest lap point for finishing inside the top 10.
However, with his penalty, Leonardo Fornaroli is now awarded an additional point for fastest lap by a driver inside the top 10 finishers in the classification. Finally, Rafael Villagómez’s in-race five-second time penalty has been deemed invalid following a post-race investigation.
The Van Amersfoort Racing driver was initially penalised for an alleged failure to stay above the minimum delta time in three consecutive sectors under Safety Car conditions, a breach of Article 40.7 of the FIA Formula 2 Sporting Regulations.
However, after a post-race examination of video and data evidence, the Stewards determined that the in-session penalty imposed on Car 25 was deemed invalid, as data indicated that the alleged infringements took place after the Safety Car had been called in. With his penalty removed, Villagómez moves up to 12th position.
F3:
Slater aced his start to keep hold of the lead into Turn 1 ahead of Stromsted along the Kemmel Straight, the Hitech TGR driver defended into Les Combes, with Bruno del Pino and Wurz following in third and fourth behind them. Lap 2 and Wurz was able to pass the MP Motorsport driver to make it a TRIDENT 2-3, though the leading pair had escaped out of DRS range to those behind.
Across the line on the following lap, Stromsted had the gap to Slater down to 0.4s and along the Kemmel Straight, the Dane swept into the lead with DRS. Ugochukwu was on the move, having overtaken Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and del Pino to get to P4 by Lap 3, he cleared Wurz around the outside into Les Combes to take third on Lap 4.
Onto Lap 6 and Martinius Stenshorne put himself into fifth with a DRS pass on del Pino into Turn 5 and set his sights on Wurz, who was less than a second ahead. Having lost the lead earlier on, Slater fell out of DRS range to Stromsted and Ugochukwu moved himself into second with a DRS pass along the Kemmel Straight on Lap 7.
Just behind them, Inthraphuvasak and del Pino went into battle at Turn 5, and the Campos Racing driver won their fight as the MP man dipped a wheel into the gravel at Turn 6. That allowed Nikola Tsolov to sneak through for seventh as well. Wurz was able to take third from Slater on the following tour, while Championship rivals Rafael Câmara and Mari Boya passed del Pino into Les Combes to take eighth and ninth places respectively.
Entering Lap 9, Inthraphuvasak fell to eighth in a five-car battle as Stenshorne along with title rivals Tsolov, Câmara and Boya fought by Slater. The Bulgarian passed Stenshorne for fourth place going into Lap 10 to put a car between himself and the Championship leader, but only briefly. Câmara used DRS along the Kemmel Straight to break into the top five himself, going ahead of the Hitech driver at Turn 5.
Crucially in the title picture, Boya was hit with a five-second time penalty on the pre-penultimate lap for exceeding track limits. The Spaniard was running in eight position, but had several other drivers within that window going onto Lap 11 of 12. Onto the final lap and Inthraphuvasak passed Stenshorne to take sixth place, but teammate Boya couldn’t find a route past at Les Combes to follow.
Up in front, Stromsted went untroubled after taking the lead and dominated to earn his first F3 win by six seconds. Ugochukwu was on the podium in P2, and Wurz resisted a final lap charge from Tsolov to complete the podium in third place. Câmara was fifth on a strong day for TRIDENT ahead of Inthraphuvasak and Stenshorne. Del Pino, Brando Badoer and Slater rounded out the points-paying positions in eighth, ninth and 10th, as Boya fell to 15th with his time penalty applied.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1949013902781550662
UPDATE: Following the conclusion of the FIA Formula 3 Sprint Race at Spa-Francorchamps, Van Amersfoort Racing driver Théophile Nael has been handed a post-race penalty. The Frenchman was found to have exceeded track limits four times during the race, breaching Article 27.3 of the FIA Formula 3 Sporting Regulations.
As a result, he has had a five-second time penalty applied to his race time. With the application of the five seconds, the VAR driver goes from P17 in the classification down to 22nd. It promotes, Callum Voisin, Tuukka Taponen, Brad Benavides, James Wharton and Santiago Ramos up one place each in the final classification.
[The story is as per press release]
