Foresti wins with wet tyre gamble

The Brazilian Fortec driver was one of only four people to stay out on wets as the track dried out during the 30-minute race, and the gamble paid off.

A torrential downpour during the preceding Formula Ford support race soaked the track and all 20 F3 drivers started their race on wet tyres.

Foresti started sixth, but made excellent progress early on to lie fourth - behind poleman Rupert Svendsen-Cook, Carlos Huertas and Felipe Nasr.

It took only four laps before the drivers began running off the racing line to cool their tyres and two laps later, both Will Buller (Fortec) and Pipo Derani (Double R) dived into the pits to switch to slicks.

Most of the rest of the field followed suit over the next few laps. Svendsen-Cook was the last of the drivers to switch to slicks on lap 10 of 21, which handed the lead to a closing Foresti.

With all the stops shaken out, Foresti was left with a 11.1-second lead over Double R's Scott Pye, with Yann Cunha (T-Sport) a further 15s back in third.

Nasr, whose car was rebuilt just in time for the race following a heavy qualifying crash, emerged fifth after the stops, but his extra couple of laps on slicks gave him the confidence to overhaul team-mate Svendsen-Cook for fourth shortly after the early leader's own stop.

Nasr closed down the top three during the last half of the race, lapping up to six seconds a lap quicker at times as his rivals struggled to eke out the life of their wets on the drying track.

The championship leader jumped Cunha on lap 14, and leapt into second with three laps to run, but ran out of time to catch and pass Foresti, who was able to lap just fast enough to hold on for a 4.9s victory.

"I didn't even think to stop," said the winner. "I just kept going, pushed when it was wet and got the biggest gap I could."

Pye put up a spirited defence of the remaining podium place, but eventually slumped to eighth as Carlin quartet Svendsen-Cook, Jazeman Jaafar, Huertas and Kevin Magnussen, plus Fortec's Buller, swept through.

Magnussen made a mega start from 10th, but ran off the road at Druids as he tried to drive around the outside of Nasr at Druids on the opening lap. He recovered well to finish sixth on the road, but a 10s penalty for his team not clearing the grid in time dropped him back to eighth.

T-Sport's Menasheh Idafar and Fortec's Harry Tincknell, who started together on row seven, completed the points finishers.

Results - 21 laps:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car                     Time/Gap
 1.  Lucas Foresti         Fortec Dallara-Merc        30m35.827s
 2.  Felipe Nasr           Carlin Dallara-VW            + 4.966s
 3.  Rupert Svendsen-Cook  Carlin Dallara-VW           + 12.447s
 4.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin Dallara-VW           + 16.903s
 5.  Carlos Huertas        Carlin Dallara-VW           + 19.329s
 6.  Will Buller           Fortec Dallara-Merc         + 21.838s
 7.  Scott Pye             Double R Dallara-Merc       + 28.417s
 8.  Kevin Magnussen       Carlin Dallara-VW           + 29.708s
 9.  Menasheh Idafar       T-Sport Dallara-VW          + 34.168s
10.  Harry Tincknell       Fortec Dallara-Merc         + 38.714s
11.  Adderly Fong          Sino Vision Dallara-Merc    + 40.042s
12.  Pietro Fantin         Hitech Dallara-VW           + 40.411s
13.  Jack Harvey           Carlin Dallara-VW           + 45.635s
14.  Yann Cunha            T-Sport Dallara-VW          + 55.528s
15.  Pipo Derani           Double R Dallara-Merc       + 57.310s
16.  Maxim Snegirev        Hitech Dallara-VW         + 1m19.824s
17.  Kotaro Sakurai        Hitech Dallara-Mugen          + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Hywel Lloyd           Sino Vision Dallara-Merc      17 laps
     Fahmi Ilyas           Fortec Dallara-Merc           15 laps
     Bart Hylkema          T-Sport Dallara-Mugen          3 laps