Hamilton Roars to Victory in Pau
Lewis Hamilton roared on Saturday to an easy victory in Race One of this weekend's Euro Series Formula Three round at Pau in France, after two of his closest rivals ended their afternoon with severely damaged machinery
Hamilton got away cleanly at the start from pole position, but it all went wrong for fellow front-row starter Adrian Sutil, who got badly bogged down.
As the field roared towards the first corner, the slow Sutil was swallowed up by his rivals and came off worst when Esteban Guerrieri clattered into him and pushed him into the barriers as he tried to get past.
With Sutil out on the spot, before getting craned away while still in the car, the way was left open for third placed qualifier Franck Perera to grab second spot, ahead of Loic Duval and James Rossiter, who had got briefly held up by Sutil's slow car.
Hamilton was unaffected at the front as he steadily extended his advantage and pushed hard until the closing stages of the race to grab a dominant victory.
""It was a great race for me," said the Briton. "I knew I had to get into the first corner in the lead. I had a big margin at the end of the first couple of laps but you can make a mistake so easily here and I just had to keep concentrating."
Behind the runaway leader there was plenty to play for as Duval put Perera under severe pressure - and eventually forced the Frenchman into a mistake on lap four, when he ran wide at the exit of Foch.
Duval duly took the second spot but realised pretty quickly that there was little point in trying to chase down Hamilton. "There was a gap to Lewis and it wasn't possible for me to make it up," he said. "So I stayed there and just looked in my mirrors."
Rossiter finished third, just 1.5 seconds behind Duval, while Guillaume Moreau took fourth place after Paul di Resta spun out of that position after missing a downshift at the final corner - just when he seemed to have secured the spot.
Hamilton will obviously start Sunday's race favourite, but he knows that nothing is guaranteed. "Two pole positions and a win is great, but we have got to go out and do the same thing tomorrow," he said.
Classified: Pos Driver Chassis-Engine Time 1. Hamilton Lewis Dallara F305 Mercedes 30:26.815 2. Duval Loïc Dallara F305 Opel + 9.390 3. Rossiter James Dallara F305 Opel + 10.952 4. Moreau Guillaume Dallara F305 Opel + 33.420 5. Di Grassi Lucas Dallara F305 Mercedes + 37.205 6. Van Der Garde Giedo Dallara F305 Opel + 38.646 7. Vettel Sebastian Dallara F305 Mercedes + 38.819 8. Antinucci Richard Dallara F305 Tom's Toyota + 41.556 9. Nunez Alejandro Dallara F305 Opel + 48.073 10. Hirate Kohei Dallara F305 Opel + 50.254 11. Abreu Atila Dallara F305 Mercedes + 53.543 12. Neuhauser Hannes Dallara F305 Mercedes + 54.182 13. Zwolsman Ross Dallara F305 Opel + 55.606 14. Di Resta Paul Dallara F305 Mercedes + 57.711 15. Franchi Greg Dallara F305 Opel +1:10.570 16. Carbone Fabio S L C R 1 Opel + 1 Laps 17. Salaquarda Filip Dallara F305 Opel + 1 Laps 18. Holzer Thomas Dallara F 305 Opel + 1 Laps 19. Guerrieri Esteban Dallara F305 Tom's Toyota + 3 Laps Retirements/Not Classified: Driver Chassis-Engine On Lap Bonanomi Marco Dallara F305 Opel 7 Perera Franck Dallara F305 Opel 4 Gotz Maximilian Dallara F305 Opel 4 Sutil Adrian Dallara F305 Mercedes 1
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