The GP3 Series circus heads to the Styrian mountains for the third round of the season at the Red Bull Ring.
Anthoine Hubert heads the championship from ART Grand Prix team-mate Nikita Mazepin with Trident‘s Giuliano Alesi third in the standings.
ART’s Jake Hughes will be hoping to make up lost ground in the championship, having dropped to tenth in the standings.
Canadian Devlin DeFrancesco will be joining MP Motorsport this weekend and will contest the remainder of the season with them.
WHAT HAPPENED IN 2017 AT THE RED BULL RING?
Last year at the Red Bull Ring, was the weekend of maiden victors with George Russell and Raoul Hyman both winning for the first time in the GP3.
Russell, starting from pole position, managed to the control the race to flag after maintaining his advantage over team-mate Jack Aitken at the start.
It was a dominant performance by ART all around as they claimed the first four positions at the flag – Nirei Fukuzumi coming home in third just ahead of Hubert.
Hubert had been running in third place but a ten second penalty dropped the Frenchman to fourth.
In Sunday’s Sprint Race it was Hyman’s turn to take to the top step.
The South African had started from reverse grid pole position, as he had done so at the previous round at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
However, unlike the last time he found himself in that position Hyman held onto his lead into Turn 1 and set about building an advantage over Alesi in second.
Managing to hold on to the challenge that Alesi posed to taken victory in Austria.
You can read the full reports of what happened last year here: Feature Race | Sprint Race
WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME AT PAUL RICARD?
In qualifying, Dorian Boccolacci denied Hubert the opportunity of starting on pole position at their home race.
Boccolacci headed a trio of Frenchmen for the first ever GP3 Series race in France, with Hubert starting second and Alesi just behind.
Going into the session it looked like championship leader Hubert was the one to beat having been the pacesetter in practice.
In the dying seconds Boccolacci displaced Hubert of the bragging rights of being the French driver on pole at the French GP.
The race nearly did not get going for Boccolacci after a slow getaway from the dummy grid almost meant he would not have been able to start on pole.
Keeping the lead into Turn 1, the MP Motorsport driver edged away from his countryman but the ART driver closed him down at the to finish just 0.673 seconds behind.
However, Boccolacci and his team-mate Niko Kari were disqualified after a sufficient sample of fuel was not able to be taken from their cars.
Therefore, the victory was handed to Hubert for the ART-man to take his first win and extent is advantage at the top of the championship.
It was another ART driver who took the victory in the Sprint Race, with Callum Ilott victorious for the first time in his career.
The Briton was able to overcome an early challenge from Pedro Piquet to ultimately win by almost three and a half seconds.
Championship leader Hubert was seventh, and lucky to have escaped without a puncture after being clipped by Hughes.
WHAT IS THE SCHEDULE FOR THE WEEKEND?
FRIDAY 29 JUNE
Free Practice: 9:35 CEST
Qualifying: 17:50
SATURDAY 30 JUNE
Feature Race: 10:25
SUNDAY 1 JULY
Sprint Race: 9:45
WHERE CAN I WATCH GP3 AT THE RED BULL RING?
Coverage of the entire weekend will be shown on Sky F1 in the UK and Ireland, race reruns will also be shown during the week.
HOW CAN I KEEP UP TO DATE WITH ALL THE ACTION OVER THE WEEKEND?
Keep an eye on The Checkered Flag where all the latest news and session reports will be posted throughout the weekend!
