Lando Norris has dominated from the start to finish the first race of the weekend in FIA Formula 3 European championship at the Nürburgring. The Briton has won by 17 seconds ahead of Jake Hughes, Joey Mawson completes the podium.
At the start of the polesitter, Lando Norris (Carlin) held first place ahead of Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam) and Jake Hughes (Hitech GP). Meanwhile, Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam) continued losing positions after starting from the third position.
Norris had a great lead of the race when Full-Course-Yellow appeared because of a contact between Sacha Fenestraz (Carlin) and Nikita Mazepin (Hitech GP) that caused the retirement of Hitech GP driver. David Beckmann (Motopark) also had to retire.
At the re-start of the race, Joel Eriksson (Motopark) touched his teammate, Marino Sato who ended up suffering a spun. Also had difficulties staying on track Ameya Vaidyanthan (Carlin).
With the race stabilized, Norris was up to 11 seconds in front of Hughes, who was followed by Joey Mawson (Van Amersfoort Racing), Ilott and Tadasuke Makino (Hitech GP).
With 10 minutes left in the race, Pedro Piquet (Van Amersfoort Racing) was driving in the points zone, but he locked up in turn 5 and crashed against the tire wall, causing a new period of Full-Course-Yellow .
At the re-start, it was his teammate Max Defourny who lost the points zone when he went off at coca-cola turn.
With 3 laps to go, the fight for the third position intensified. Ilott was trying to get past Mawson in the NGK chicane but both drivers went off and this helped Makino to catch them. On the next lap, Ilott tried for the inside, but Mawson recovered the position while Makino managed to surpass the British for the fourth position.
Thanks to the victory, Lando Norris already has 36 points ahead of Maximilian Günther. Thanks to the podium, Jake Hughes climbs to the fifth position of the championship.
Results:
1 Norris 2 Hughes 3 Mawson 4 Makino 5 Ilott 6 Habsburg 7 Daruvala 8 Schumacher 9 Zhou 10 Eriksson 11 Defourny 12 Newey 13 Günther 14 Aron 15 Fenestraz 16 Sato 17 Florescu 18 Andres Soori 19 Vaidyanathan 20 Piquet 21 Beckmann 22 Mazepin