Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Ferrari protege Raffaele Marciello takes Pau F3 victory

Ferrari protege Raffaele Marciello led from start to finish in the first Formula 3 race at Pau to take the most prestigious victory of his career

Marciello, who moved up from Italian Formula 3 to European F3 competition this season, built a two-second advantage over Prema Powerteam team-mate Daniel Juncadella in the first eight laps.

Then he was suddenly gifted a lead of 15 seconds when Juncadella collided with Pascal Wehrlein at the tight Lycee hairpin. German Wehrlein, in a Mucke Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes, saw a gap that was not there by the time he arrived at the corner and, after he tangled with the Spaniard, an enormous traffic jam piled up behind.

The safety car appeared as cranes winched the two cars off the circuit, and Marciello had to fend off a bold bid by Jazeman Jaafar to sweep around the outside of him at the start-finish kink, but once he had seen off that attack his Dallara-Mercedes pulled away by four tenths per lap.

"It's fantastic," said the Italian. "Everything was perfect. The car was faster than everyone behind so I just had to look after my tyres."

Jaafar's result gave him victory in the British Formula 3 International Series classification. It moves the Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen driver into the points lead.

"I didn't have a very good start and lost time early on when I locked up [at the Gare corner]. I focused as much as I could on the restart but didn't have enough speed to get by."

Alex Lynn took third overall, and second in the British F3 results, in his Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes. The Briton confidently held off a race-long attack from Mucke's Felix Rosenqvist to the flag.

Carlin drivers Jack Harvey and pre-weekend British F3 points leader Carlos Sainz Jr completed the top six, Harvey sustaining a damaged front wing and bent trackrod in the Lycee snarl-up.

Behind them, Harry Tincknell and Felix Serralles made the British F3 top six, with Double R Racing's Fahmi Ilyas holding off a midfield train in arguably his best performance to date - helped by jumping a couple of places in the Lycee traffic jam.

T-Sport's Spike Goddard was the only National Class driver in the race when Duvashen Padayachee was pushed off the grid, and pressed A-class runner Geoff Uhrhane to the finish.

Results - 23 laps:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car                   Time/Gap
 1.  Raffaelle Marciello   Prema Dallara-Merc       29m54.589s
 2.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin Dallara-VW          + 6.734s
 3.  Alex Lynn             Fortec Dallara-Merc        + 8.057s
 4.  Felix Rosenqvist      Mucke Dallara-Merc         + 8.813s
 5.  Jack Harvey           Carlin Dallara-VW         + 12.329s
 6.  Carlos Sainz Jr       Carlin Dallara-VW         + 15.351s
 7.  Harry Tincknell       Carlin Dallara-VW         + 16.099s
 8.  Felix Serralles       Fortec Dallara-Merc       + 16.928s
 9.  Fahmi Ilyas           Double R Dallara-Merc     + 23.716s
10.  Michael Lewis         Prema Dallara-Merc        + 24.465s
11.  Hannes van Asseldonk  Fortec Dallara-Merc       + 25.155s
12.  Sven Muller           Prema Dallara-Merc        + 25.498s
13.  Tom Blomqvist         ma-con Dallara-VW         + 27.434s
14.  Pietro Fantin         Carlin Dallara-VW         + 28.120s
15.  Nick McBride          T-Sport Dallara-Nissan    + 29.738s
16.  Geoff Uhrhane         Double R Dallara-Merc     + 36.887s
17.  Spike Goddard         T-Sport Dallara-Mugen*    + 37.434s
18.  Sandro Zeller         Jo Zeller Dallara-Merc    + 39.384s
19.  Andrea Roda           Jo Zeller Dallara-Merc      + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Pipo Derani           Fortec Dallara-Merc         12 laps
     Daniel Juncadella     Prema Dallara-Merc           8 laps
     Pascal Wehrlein       Mucke Dallara-Merc           8 laps
     Emil Bernstorff       ma-con Dallara-VW            0 laps
     Duvashen Padayachee   Double R Dallara-Mugen*      0 laps

* National class

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Ferrari protege Raffaele Marciello takes shock double pole for Pau Formula 3 races
Next article Mitch Evans wins GP3 season opener at Barcelona

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe