The penultimate race of the 2020 FIA Formula 3 season produced a fine battle for the lead with Frederik Vesti making the race-winning move on the final lap of the race to beat Jake Hughes to victory.
The lead battle was one you couldn’t take your eyes off as Hughes fought Lirim Zendeli initially before the German fell away with tyre wear becoming an issue. That left Vesti, who kept his tyres in good condition in the early stages to take up the fight and his last lap DRS pass was enough to take his third win of the year.
He crossed the line just three tenths ahead of Hughes with the pair well clear of third which was taken by Théo Pourchaire who also made a last lap pass on Zendeli to keep himself in title contention, sitting just nine points behind both Logan Sargeant and Oscar Piastri.
Piastri is on the back foot though as he could only get up to eleventh from his grid position of sixteenth and misses out on reverse grid pole as a result so he knows he will have to pass Sargeant and Pourchaire on the road for the title.
Sargeant was on course to finish fifth until Enzo Fittipaldi demoted him on the final lap meaning he and Piastri are level on 160 points heading into the final race of the year tomorrow.
The battle for seventh was intense as David Beckmann tried to fight off the ART duo of Aleksandr Smolyar and Sebastián Fernández. Smolyar eventually beating out the German with Fernández coming in just behind.
That does give Fernández a front row start for tomorrow’s final race of the season where he’ll be alongside Liam Lawson who fought his way into the final point-paying place.
Tomorrow’s second race of the weekend is now set up for a tantalising title battle with Piastri, Sargeant and Pourchaire all with a chance of glory. Pourchaire needs a podium and has to hope that neither of the PREMA’s score points while the score is simple for Piastri and Sargeant… just beat the other.
| Pos. | Name | Team | Laps/Gap |
| 1 | Frederik Vesti | PREMA | 21 Laps |
| 2 | Jake Hughes | HWA Racelab | +0.324 |
| 3 | Théo Pourchaire | ART | +2.369 |
| 4 | Lirim Zendeli | Trident | +4.783 |
| 5 | Enzo Fittipaldi | HWA Racelab | +7.816 |
| 6 | Logan Sargeant | PREMA | +8.511 |
| 7 | Aleksandr Smolyar | ART | +10.540 |
| 8 | David Beckmann | Trident | +11.019 |
| 9 | Sebastián Fernández | ART | +11.505 |
| 10 | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | +12.496 |
| 11 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | +13.483 |
| 12 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | +15.308 |
| 13 | Jack Doohan | HWA Racelab | +19.489 |
| 14 | Dennis Hauger | Hitech GP | +25.862 |
| 15 | David Schumacher | Carlin | +26.311 |
| 16 | Matteo Nannini | Jenzer | +26.834 |
| 17 | Olli Caldwell | Trident | +26.900 |
| 18 | Federico Malvestiti | Jenzer | +32.604 |
| 19 | Calan Williams | Jenzer | +33.910 |
| 20 | Alex Peroni | Campos | +35.469 |
| 21 | Lukas Dunner | MP Motorsport | +35.509 |
| 22 | Sophia Floersch | Campos | +39.588 |
| 23 | Cameron Das | Carlin | +40.793 |
| 24 | Clément Novalak | Carlin | +48.067 |
| 25 | Alessio Deledda | Campos | +50.078 |
| 26 | Roman Stanek | Charouz | +1 Lap |
| 27 | Michael Belov | Charouz | +1 Lap |
| 28 | Bent Viscaal | MP Motorsport | DNF (Mechanical) |
