European Formula 3

Norris collects second Spa victory as championship leader crashes out

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Lando Norris took victory in race three at Spa - Credit: FIA Formula 3 European Championship / Thomas Suer

Lando Norris made up for his mistakes in the second race of the Spa-Francorchamps weekend as he took another victory while championship leader Maximilian Günther lost ground with a DNF.

Pole sitter Callum Ilott lead the field away for a clear opening lap as the competitors managed to make it through Les Combes for the first race of the weekend.

It would be a few laps later that the safety car would be called out due to an accident…

Günther squeezed Jake Hughes as he tried to defend fifth place, unfortunately the German squeezed too hard giving Hughes nowhere to go. The result of Günther pulling across would mean his left rear tyre would meet with the right front on Hughes car, spinning the Prema Powerteam car in to the barriers. The Brit managed to survive the initial incident but would fail to make it out of the second sector with accident damage putting him out of the race.

With the cars cleared on track Guanyu Zhou brought the field around for the restart.

Positions up front would remain the same until after Raidillon when Norris made his move, getting in the slipstream of Zhou’s car along the Kemmel Straight, completing the move as they headed in to Les Combes.

On the next lap round Ilott was closing on his teammate as Norris pulled away, further back Joel Eriksson was on the move as he took fifth place from Ralf Aron. David Beckman would lose out on two positions as he ran off track, Mick Schumacher and Pedro Piquet made the most of the opportunity to pounce.

Eriksson was making moves as he gained another position with the fastest lap of the race as he passed Jehan Daruvala.

Norris at this point was continuing to pull out a gap at the front as Zhou started to lose a little pace, it wouldn’t be long before his team-mate Ilott passed him for second place.

Beckman’s problems continued as the bodywork flailed on his engine, as he rounded the lap he would be shown the black flag for mechanical issues, putting him out of the running.

Motopark driver Eriksson effortlessly passed second placed Ilott and set his sights on the main prize.

With the clock counting down it was starting to look like Eriksson’s push forward had run out of steam, as Norris extended his lead to 3.024 seconds.

Ralf Aron and Ferdinand Habsburg went wheel to wheel through the Les Combes section of track, somehow avoiding each other with the Estonian coming out on top of the battle; A lap later Habsburg would take the position back.

On the last lap Ilott lost out on his podium position as Zhou passed him along the Kemmel straight, Norris however was out of reach for Eriksson and the British driver secured his second victory of the weekend ahead of Eriksson and Zhou.

With championship leader Günther missing out on points his championship lead shrunk to 18 points over Norris.

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Founder and Editor-In-Chief of The Checkered Flag who grew up visiting race circuits around the UK also a freelance motorsport PR officer. Outside of motorsport a lover of music, photography, NBA and NFL.
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