As chaos rained around him, Théo Pourchaire showed maturity beyond his sixteen years to take his second FIA Formula 3 win in as many races.
The Frenchman was able to get a good gap at every safety car restart over Oscar Piastri and pulled well clear to score a crushing victory.
Bernd Maylander in his safety car was out on lap one as a slippery surface caused Logan Sargeant to slide under braking and clatter into pole-sitter Aleksandr Smolyar. Sargeant got away from the incident third but Smolyar, Frederik Vesti and Calan Williams all retired as a result.
Liam Lawson looked everywhere for a way past the American after the restart but his race was ended as his car caught fire out of turn one. The blowout dropped oil across turns one and two which saw the FIA red flag the session to clear the track.
Piastri held on to second despite some light damage from the turn one melee ahead of Sargeant and MP Motorsport pair Bent Viscaal and Richard Verschoor with the former pulling off a stunning outside pass at turn four on the final lap to get the position.
Sebastián Fernández’s race was almost ended as he was directly behind Lawson’s expiring Hitech GP car but he recovered to finish sixth from, Alex Peroni and Dennis Hauger.
Other than Pourchaire, Clément Novalak was perhaps the star of the race, climbing seventeen places to ninth for Carlin and he’ll start on the front row for race two with tenth-placed David Beckmann on pole.
Pos. | Name | Team | Laps/Gap |
1 | Théo Pourchaire | ART | 22 Laps |
2 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | +11.920 |
3 | Logan Sargeant | PREMA | +14.739 |
4 | Bent Viscaal | MP Motorsport | +17.360 |
5 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | +18.063 |
6 | Sebastián Fernández | ART | +19.6636 |
7 | Alex Peroni | Campos | +21.431 |
8 | Dennis Hauger | Hitech GP | +21.656 |
9 | Clément Novalak | Carlin Buzz Racing | +22.208 |
10 | David Beckmann | Trident | +22.951 |
11 | Max Fewtrell | Hitech GP | +23.428 |
12 | Lukas Dunner | MP Motorsport | +27.298 |
13 | Federico Malvestiti | Jenzer | +27.972 |
14 | Enaam Ahmed | Carlin Buzz Racing | +28.597 |
15 | Igor Fraga | Charouz | +30.883 |
16 | David Schumacher | Charouz | +31.265 |
17 | Cameron Das | Carlin Buzz Racing | +34.777 |
18 | Sophia Floersch | Campos | +36.352 |
19 | Enzo Fittipaldi | HWA Racelab | +36.629 |
20 | Alessio Deledda | Campos | +38.432 |
21 | Olli Caldwell | Trident | +44.026 |
22 | Matteo Nannini | Jenzer | +47.482 |
23 | Roman Stanek | Charouz | +49.705 |
24 | Jake Hughes | HWA Racelab | +62.217 |
25 | Lirim Zendeli | Trident | DNF (Contact) |
26 | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | DNF (Mechanical) |
27 | Jack Doohan | HWA Racelab | DNF (Contact) |
28 | Aleksandr Smolyar | ART | DNF (Contact) |
29 | Frederik Vesti | PREMA | DNF (Contact) |
30 | Calan Williams | Jenzer | DNF (Contact) |