Silverstone British F3: Marvin Kirchhofer doubles up in race three
Marvin Kirchhofer showed his class with a dominant win in the final British Formula 3 Championship race of the Silverstone weekend
Once again the German GP3 frontrunner made a terrific start, and he pulled away throughout most of the race to win by 13.3 seconds.
Martin Cao held off Matt Rao in a close contest for second to complete a 1-2-3 for the Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes squad.
Kirchhofer showed very good pace, but was warned for track-limits offences, and also slowed up for yellow flags during the middle of the race, the only point when Cao and Rao made inroads into his advantage.
"The start was pretty good," said Kirchhofer, who is contesting this weekend's round to learn the circuit for July's GP3 series event.
"It's important to have clear air and that was my plan, and then I was able to build a gap. The only problem was the wind changed from yesterday, which caught me out with track limits, but I was able to improve there."
Most of the interest went out of the race when Egor Orudzhev had a sudden left-rear suspension failure at Chapel Curve on the sixth lap.
From the back of the grid due to his penalty from yesterday's second race, the Russian passed Carlin team-mate Peter Li on the first lap, before swooping past Double R duo Camren Kaminsky and Andy Chang on the second.
He was gaining on Cao and Rao when the failure occurred, while Li completed Carlin's misery by also pulling off on the same lap with an unspecified technical problem.
Rao got close to Cao, but was unable to prevent the Chinese racer from retaining his 100 per cent record of second-place finishes in 2014 and extending his championship lead.
Kaminsky was a distant fourth from Chang, who enjoyed a good battle for third on the opening lap with Rao.
Results - 16 laps: Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Marvin Kirchhofer Fortec Dallara-Merc 30m59.299s 2. Martin Cao Fortec Dallara-Merc +13.288s 3. Matt Rao Fortec Dallara-Merc +13.742s 4. Camren Kaminsky Double R Dallara-Merc +30.799s 5. Andy Chang Double R Dallara-Merc +34.384s Retirements: Egor Orudzhev Carlin Dallara-VW 5 laps Peter Li Carlin Dallara-VW 5 laps
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