Daniel Ticktum returned to winning ways and took over at the top of the FIA European Formula 3 Championship standings after coming out on top of a battle with Motopark team-mate Fabio Scherer to win race two at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday.
Having lost fourth earlier in the day thanks to a penalty, Ticktum started the race down in tenth, but was soon in the battle for the lead as Prema Theodore Racing made a mess of their own race at the front of the field, with pole sitter Mick Schumacher and team-mate Guan Yu Zhou making contact with each other at La Source on the opening lap, with Marcus Armstrong also finding himself delayed by the incident.
Prema’s Ralf Aron took over the lead ahead of his fellow Estonian Jüri Vips, with the two switching places at the end of the Kemmel Straight on lap two, but two laps later the two collided at the same spot as Aron attempted to return the favour on the Motopark driver.
This gave Scherer the lead while Ticktum was already up to third behind Robert Shwartzman, with the Briton jumping the Russian for second on lap six and then the Swiss driver for the lead on lap eight.
Scherer returned to the lead on lap nine but Ticktum made the decisive move for the lead on lap eleven, with the Briton holding on for the win by 1.483 seconds.
Jehan Daruvala, race winner in race one earlier in the day, drove superbly again to claim third for Carlin Motorsport, finishing just behind Scherer, while Shwartzman took fourth after capitalising on Nikita Troitskiy dropping from that position to eighth in the closing laps.
Enaam Ahmed was fifth for Hitech Bullfrog Racing ahead of Armstrong, while Sacha Fenestraz took seventh ahead of Carlin team-mate Troitskiy. Jonathan Aberdein claimed ninth for Motopark while the final point went to Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg, who took that place away from Alex Palou on the final lap after being another to be delayed by the first corner contact at the front of the field.
Spa-Francorchamps Race 2 Result
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