Spa European F3: BMW junior Eriksson breaks through for maiden win
BMW junior Joel Eriksson finally broke his Formula 3 European Championship duck by winning the final race of the series' Spa weekend
When poleman George Russell suddenly stalled after a good initial launch, outside-front-row man Eriksson was able to lead the field into La Source.
Crucially, the Swede was able to hold his advantage after the long drag to Les Combes and, with chaos in his mirrors, Eriksson emerged from the opening lap with a lead of 1.793 seconds over Anthoine Hubert.
The gap remained at around 1.5s throughout the race, the Van Amersfoort Racing Dallara-Mercedes of Hubert never able to make sufficient inroads on the Motopark Dallara-Volkswagen of Eriksson.
"I saw George was messing up the start so I saw the opportunity to win the race, because the pace from Hitech GP [Russell's team] yesterday was incredible," said Eriksson.
"I managed to keep the lead at Les Combes and pulled the gap and kept it, and managed the tyres, which is important at this track."
The other story of the race was the starring role of Russell.
The Briton had dropped into the midfield by the first corner, but on the eighth lap he squeezed past the Prema Powerteam machine of Nick Cassidy for fourth on the long drag up to Les Combes.
He then cut the gap to Prema's third-placed Lance Stroll, who in turn was shadowing Hubert.
Judging by his relatively slow pace on the straights and high speed in the middle sector, Russell appeared to be running higher downforce than championship leader Stroll, and this meant he had to be inventive in his bid to pass.
He speared down the inside at the Bus Stop on the 14th lap of 16, but then almost lost control while pushing to catch Hubert.
On each of the final two laps Stroll was able to draft back ahead on the Kemmel straight, only for Russell to tuck back into the Canadian's slipstream and swoop around the outside at Les Combes to take the final podium spot.
Hitech's Nikita Mazepin ran third in the early stages but the inexperienced Russian couldn't quite hold the pace, and it was Prema team-mates Cassidy and Maximilian Gunther who came through to complete the top six.
Motopark runner Niko Kari also got past Mazepin on the penultimate lap to take seventh, with the Mucke Motorsport pair of Mikkel Jensen and David Beckmann rounding out the top 10.
It was a bad race for British pair Ben Barnicoat and Callum Ilott.
They were fighting for second into Les Combes on the opening lap when contact dropped Ilott to the tail of the field and sent Barnicoat crawling to the pits with a shredded right-rear tyre, while Ilott eventually retired from the race.
RESULTS - 16 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Joel Eriksson | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 35m32.758s |
2 | Anthoine Hubert | Van Amersfoort Racing | Dallara/Mercedes | 1.613s |
3 | George Russell | Hitech GP | Dallara/Mercedes | 3.563s |
4 | Lance Stroll | Prema Powerteam | Dallara/Mercedes | 4.315s |
5 | Nick Cassidy | Prema Powerteam | Dallara/Mercedes | 5.976s |
6 | Maximilian Guenther | Prema Powerteam | Dallara/Mercedes | 9.543s |
7 | Niko Kari | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 11.124s |
8 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech GP | Dallara/Mercedes | 12.643s |
9 | Mikkel Jensen | kfzteile Mucke Motorsport | Dallara/Mercedes | 15.696s |
10 | David Beckmann | kfzteile Mucke Motorsport | Dallara/Mercedes | 16.101s |
11 | Guanyu Zhou | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 20.699s |
12 | Harrison Newey | Van Amersfoort Racing | Dallara/Mercedes | 22.765s |
13 | Ralf Aron | Prema Powerteam | Dallara/Mercedes | 23.744s |
14 | Pedro Piquet | Van Amersfoort Racing | Dallara/Mercedes | 26.081s |
15 | Sergio Sette Camara | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 30.578s |
16 | Ryan Tveter | Carlin | Dallara/Volkswagen | 36.174s |
17 | Alessio Lorandi | Carlin | Dallara/Volkswagen | 39.329s |
18 | Weiron Tan | Carlin | Dallara/Volkswagen | 45.772s |
19 | Ukyo Sasahara | ThreeBond with T-Sport | Dallara/Threebond | 47.150s |
20 | Ben Barnicoat | Hitech GP | Dallara/Mercedes | 1m27.867s |
- | Callum Ilott | Van Amersfoort Racing | Dallara/Mercedes | Retirement |
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
Pos | Driver | Points |
---|---|---|
1 | Lance Stroll | 296 |
2 | Maximilian Guenther | 235 |
3 | George Russell | 194 |
4 | Nick Cassidy | 194 |
5 | Callum Ilott | 183 |
6 | Joel Eriksson | 136 |
7 | Ben Barnicoat | 117 |
8 | Anthoine Hubert | 111 |
9 | Mikkel Jensen | 100 |
10 | Ralf Aron | 98 |
11 | Alessio Lorandi | 96 |
12 | Sergio Sette Camara | 89 |
13 | Niko Kari | 82 |
14 | Guanyu Zhou | 80 |
15 | David Beckmann | 42 |
16 | Ryan Tveter | 26 |
17 | Pedro Piquet | 17 |
18 | Harrison Newey | 16 |
19 | Nikita Mazepin | 5 |
20 | Arjun Maini | 3 |
21 | Raoul Hyman | 1 |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments