After a clean start and an excellent defensive drive, Enaam Ahmed took victory and thus the championship lead with the final BRDC British F3 race of the weekend. He leaves Snetterton with 81 points and the knowledge that second placed Lando Norris won’t be racing the whole season.
The first four places on the grid were filled with the top five in the championship with only Aleksanteri Huovinen finding himself further back, in eighth. The varied conditions had predicted to mix the grid up, but it was a regular face at the front with Toby Sowery starting on pole for the final race.
For his incident in race two, Ben Hingeley had a ten place grid penalty, dropping him to sixteenth. He eventually retired his machine, 5 laps into the race.
It was Ahmed who made the best start, sweeping around Sowery to take the lead into turn one with every driver making it around lap one safely.
The top six appeared to be the usual suspects as the championship front runners were joined by the quick starting Thomas Randle, who’d worked his way up to fifth in the opening lap. In return this had allowed the top four to break away with Sowery now pressuring Ahmed for the lead.
Behind them Matheus Leist had maintained third ahead of Norris at the start, but a well timed move saw the MSA C clinch third and set the fastest lap. Meanwhile, team mate, Ricky Collard was slowing working his way up having started nineteenth, running thirteenth after four laps.
A noticeable gap soon appeared as Thomas Maxwell, running eighth was now 6 seconds down on the car in front and holding up the rest of the field. An attempted move from Quinlan Lall did not go as expected, dropping the American to fourteenth.
Back at the front, Ahmed continued to absorb the pressure from Sowery and Norris with the three separated by 0.7 seconds. But with the laps counting down, time was running out for Sowery to make a move.
The battle for ninth, behind the resilient Maxwell, claimed another two drivers as an incident between Akhil Rabindra and Jan Jonck saw them fall to the back of the pack.
Despite the constant pressure, Ahmed held on to claim his and Douglas Motorsport’s first BRDC British F3 win, with Sowery and Norris rounding out the podium. Behind them, Leist held on to fourth in front of Randle and Huovinen.
Sisa Ngebulana concluded a pretty quiet race to finish seventh with Maxwell dropping to ninth after a brave race long effort to hold off the opposition. Collard was the man who claimed eighth having gained 11 positions during the encounter helping him partially recover a disappointing Sunday.
Snetterton: Race 3 Results
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