GP3 Series

Albon takes GP3 championship lead with Sunday victory

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Alexander Albon (THA, ART Grand Prix) 2016 GP3 Series Round 4 Hungaroring, Budapest, Hungary Sunday 24 July 2016 Photo: /GP3 Series Media Service ref: Digital Image _W2Q7224

Alexander Albon took his third win of this GP3 Series after making a decent start from P2 to pass Jenzer Motorsport‘s Arjun Maini to take the lead of the race.

The Thai driver was in control from then on bagging the extra points for fastest lap to make this point abundantly clear. Maini managed to come home in second place to achieve his maiden podium with Charles Leclerc in third place.

Maini, starting from reverse grid pole made a fine getaway from his grid slot but despite that it still was not good enough to prevent Albon from charging into the lead.

Unfortunately, it was not a clean start for everybody. Akash Nandy was caught up in a start-line incident which saw his Jenzer machine be flipped three times. The safety car was deployed for the debris to be cleared up, and thankfully the Malaysian driver was able to get out of the car unaided.

Just as the safety car was about to pull into the pits Ralph Boschung tagged the rear of Leclerc twice – both drivers were able to continue but the Swiss driver lost several positions in the process and damaged his nose cone; subsequently he was given a drive-through penalty for the incident which thus dropped him to the back of the pack.

Out front, Albon held a gap of around one second over Maini who had Leclerc hot on his tail. At one stage this gap dropped to sixth tenths of a second but Albon soon brought this back under control.

Whilst trying to find his way past Maini, Leclerc locked up which gave Arden International‘s Jack Aitken  an opening to pressure Leclerc for the final spot on the rostrum. As the final laps ticked down, Albon increased his margin at the front to two seconds with Maini looking to have settled into P2. Leclerc, had his mirrors full of Aitken but the Briton was not able to find a way past the Monegasque driver.

Albon crossed the line 3.3s ahead of Maini with Leclerc completing the podium. Aitken, Nirei FukuzumiMatthew ParryJake Dennis and Matevos Isaakyan completed the points scoring places.

However, following the race the stewards issued Aitken with a five second time penalty for causing a collision with Boschung at Turn 14. This meant that the Brit dropped from P4 to P6.

Albon now sits atop the championship standings with a three point advantage over Leclerc, with Antonio Fuoco third. ART Grand Prix maintain their huge 186 point lead in the Teams Standings with Koiranen GP and Trident second and third respectively.

Hungaroring Race 2 Results*

[table id=1322 /]

*Prior to Aitken’s penalty being applied

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An NCTJ accredited Journalism Graduate covering DTM and the FIA Formula 3 Championship.
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