Anthoine Hubert survived three safety car periods to claim his maiden victory in the FIA European Formula 3 Championship with a composed drive from pole position in race two at the Norisring on Saturday.
Hubert withstood the pressure from fellow front row starter Lance Stroll to retain the lead at the start, and then drove superbly through the safety cars and the subsequent restarts to win by 0.532 seconds for Van Amersfoort Racing.
Stroll maintained second throughout the race for Prema Powerteam to extend his championship lead even further after his earlier victory in race one, while the Canadian’s team-mate Maximilian Günther completed the podium.
Nick Cassidy was perhaps the star of the race however, with the New Zealander finishing an impressive fourth despite having started towards the rear of the field after gearbox problems on his Prema car, with Joel Eriksson his last victim, the Motopark driver being forced to settle for fifth despite having been pressurising Günther for much of the race.
Guanyu Zhou was sixth for Motopark ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing’s Callum Ilott, who was another to make big gains from his starting position after a couple of pre-race penalties, with the qualifying pacesetter starting fifteenth after a ten-place penalty for an engine change and another five-place penalty for colliding with Eriksson in race one.
Mikkel Jensen was eighth for Mücke Motorsport ahead of Hitech GP’s George Russell, while Ralf Aron took the final point on offer in tenth for Prema.
Ben Barnicoat was an early casualty when he was hit from behind and spun at turn three by Ryan Tveter, with the Hitech GP driver hitting the wall while the Carlin driver retired in the pits with suspension damage in an incident that caused the first safety car.
The second safety car was caused by the second in-team collision of the day for Sergio Sette Câmara, who after colliding with Zhou in race one ended his afternoon with suspension damage after coming together with his fellow Red Bull-backed team-mate Niko Kari.
The third was caused by Will Buller getting it all wrong at the hairpin in his Carlin, hitting the innocent Van Amersfoort Racing duo Harrison Newey and Pedro Piquet, eliminating all three drivers from the race while they battled hard just outside the points.
Norisring Race 2 Result
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