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
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