Silverstone GP3: Alexander Albon holds off charging Charles Leclerc
Alexander Albon became the first man to beat Charles Leclerc in a GP3 Series Saturday race by taking victory at Silverstone
The Anglo-Thai converted his pole position into a lights-to-flag win, while the sister ART Grand Prix machine of Leclerc was hauled through from a grid-penalised seventh to second.
Front-row man Sandy Stuvik managed to hold onto second place for almost eight laps, before Trident team-mate Antonio Fuoco got past into Club, and then Leclerc and Jake Hughes also quickly passed the fading Stuvik.
Leclerc moved up on Fuoco, and pulled off a breathtaking move around the outside of Stowe on the 10th lap of 20 - Fuoco forced his fellow Ferrari junior as wide as he dared and there may have been slight wheel-to-wheel contact, before Leclerc benefited from the inside line into Club.
Leclerc was 4.3 seconds adrift of Albon by this stage and, although he reduced that to 2.8s within two laps, Albon managed to stabilise it.
Another late charge from the Monegasque failed to make enough inroads, and Albon crossed the line 1.6s in front.
Hughes moved up to challenge Fuoco, but bad luck struck the DAMS driver when the upper plane of his rear wing worked loose.
He was shown the black-and-orange flag requiring him to pit, but instead of rejoining he called it a day.
That promoted Matt Parry to fourth, the Welshman battling his way through from outside the top 10 with a series of passing moves in his Koiranen GP car.
By the end of the race he had a challenge from ART's Nyck de Vries, who had been delayed on his climb from the back of the grid when he collided with team-mate Nirei Fukuzumi at Brooklands, but swiftly resumed his surge.
De Vries finished just behind Parry, and a five-second penalty for the McLaren junior for the clash with Fukuzumi made no difference to his final position.
Stuvik plummeted from sixth to ninth over the last couple of laps, with Ralph Boschung taking sixth from Artur Janosz (another to climb from the back of the grid) and Jake Dennis, who bravely passed Stuvik at Becketts for eighth - and provisional reversed-grid pole - on the final lap.
But five-second time penalties for track-limits offences put Janosz and Dennis down to ninth and 12th respectively.
Second-row starter Arjun Maini faded dramatically in the early laps on his GP3 debut, but settled down and made up places once more to claim 10th on the road from Alex Palou.
Maini moves up to eighth on corrected times and takes pole for Sunday's race.
Isaakyan was another shown the black-and-orange flag, in his case for a loose mirror, dropping him out of fifth place.
RESULTS - 20 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Gap |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Alexander Albon | ART Grand Prix | 37m53.666s |
2 | Charles Leclerc | ART Grand Prix | 1.647s |
3 | Antonio Fuoco | Trident | 12.239s |
4 | Matt Parry | Koiranen GP | 19.583s |
5 | Nyck de Vries | ART Grand Prix | 25.000s |
6 | Ralph Boschung | Koiranen GP | 29.094s |
7 | Sandy Stuvik | Trident | 33.337s |
8 | Arjun Maini | Jenzer Motorsport | 34.157s |
9 | Artur Janosz | Trident | 35.434s |
10 | Alex Palou | Campos Racing | 36.256s |
11 | Nirei Fukuzumi | ART Grand Prix | 36.476s |
12 | Jake Dennis | Arden International | 36.696s |
13 | Jack Aitken | Arden International | 36.852s |
14 | Steijn Schothorst | Campos Racing | 37.040s |
15 | Kevin Jorg | DAMS | 38.077s |
16 | Giuliano Alesi | Trident | 38.851s |
17 | Tatiana Calderon | Arden International | 39.607s |
18 | Santino Ferrucci | DAMS | 42.932s |
19 | Akash Nandy | Jenzer Motorsport | 43.180s |
20 | Konstantin Tereschenko | Campos Racing | 50.729s |
21 | Matevos Isaakyan | Koiranen GP | 51.679s |
- | Jake Hughes | DAMS | Retirement |
RACE TWO STARTING GRID
Pos | Driver | Team |
---|---|---|
1 | Arjun Maini | Jenzer Motorsport |
2 | Sandy Stuvik | Trident |
3 | Ralph Boschung | Koiranen GP |
4 | Nyck de Vries | ART Grand Prix |
5 | Matt Parry | Koiranen GP |
6 | Antonio Fuoco | Trident |
7 | Charles Leclerc | ART Grand Prix |
8 | Alexander Albon | ART Grand Prix |
9 | Artur Janosz | Trident |
10 | Alex Palou | Campos Racing |
11 | Nirei Fukuzumi | ART Grand Prix |
12 | Jake Dennis | Arden International |
13 | Jack Aitken | Arden International |
14 | Steijn Schothorst | Campos Racing |
15 | Kevin Jorg | DAMS |
16 | Giuliano Alesi | Trident |
17 | Tatiana Calderon | Arden International |
18 | Santino Ferrucci | DAMS |
19 | Akash Nandy | Jenzer Motorsport |
20 | Konstantin Tereschenko | Campos Racing |
21 | Matevos Isaakyan | Koiranen GP |
22 | Jake Hughes | DAMS |
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