Hughes takes long overdue first win of the season

The past couple of seasons have been a story of bad luck for Jake Hughes but the Brit was finally able to put those behind him as he took his first FIA Formula 3 win of 2020 at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Starting second, Hughes held station at the start as the safety car came out for Bent Viscaal’s gravel-trapped MP Motorsport car. As DRS was enabled at the restart, he made his move, swooping round the outside of pole-sitter and championship leader Logan Sargeant.

The race wasn’t secured there and then though, a second safety car was called for when Frederik Vesti’s PREMA came to a halt on track closing the field back up again.

But the HWA Racelab driver executed the perfect restart to be over a second clear when DRS was enabled again and he was untouchable from there on in.

Liam Lawson completed the same move as Hughes to take second from Sargeant after hounding him for much of the race, The American finished third to extend his championship lead.

That was largely thanks to Oscar Piastri making an error at the second safety car restart which saw him lose two positions to sixth.

He was unable to make progress from there as Clément Novalak drove perhaps the widest F3 car in history to keep David Beckmann and the rest at bay to finish fourth.

Beckmann and Piastri followed the Carlin home in fifth and sixth respectively and will be looking to make the most of starting ahead of their rivals in the reverse grid race tomorrow.

It was a real train that Novalak had created with Théo Pourchaire in seventh, Alex Peroni eighth and Richard Verschoor ninth.

Also on the back of the train was Matteo Nannini who showed terrific pace to keep up with the pack and pull away from those behind him to score his first point in Formula 3. The Italian is also rewarded with reverse grid pole for the weekend’s second race.