Jake Hughes holds off charging Lando Norris at Nurburgring
Jake Hughes held off a charging Lando Norris to secure his maiden Formula 3 European Championship win in the second race of the Nurburgring round
Ex-GP3 race winner Hughes led all the way from pole position, and was able to keep Norris at arm's length to secure the Silverstone-based Hitech GP squad's first victory in over 12 months.
Hughes fended off a challenge at Turn 1 from fellow front-row starter Callum Ilott, before Ilott lost second position to Norris.
Ilott ran wide onto the Astroturf at the exit of the chicane on lap two, allowing Norris to pull off a great manoeuvre at the beginning of lap three, running around the outside at Turn 1 before taking the inside line for Turn 2.
Hughes was 2.319 seconds in front of Norris at the end of the lap, and extended the gap to the Carlin-run McLaren-Honda protege to over three seconds by the middle of the race.
Norris began to chip into the advantage and closed to 0.539s by the flag but Hughes held on for victory.
"I wasn't nervous," said Hughes, "because you do your own job and see where that gets you.
"The car for the first half of the race was just awesome, and when Lando got into P2 we were equal for a while, but in the last part of the race my rear tyres fell off a cliff.
"I saw this black-and-yellow car coming and thought, 'He just doesn't leave me alone!'
"A massive thanks to all the Hitech boys and girls at the workshop, who've worked so hard."
Ilott, his rear tyres finished after only a couple of laps, couldn't keep pace with the duo in front, and instead the Prema Powerteam man had to concentrate on keeping Hitech's Honda junior Tadasuke Makino at bay.
The Japanese was on Ilott's tail with seven laps to go, but dropped back again to secure fourth, his best Euro F3 result to date after he was given a penalty after finishing in the same position in Saturday's race.
Guan Yu Zhou made a strong start to pass third-row men Ralf Aron and Ferdinand Habsburg at the beginning of the race, but Prema's Chinese Ferrari protege undid his good work by running wide onto the slippery grass at Turn 2 on lap six, spinning down the order.
That promoted Aron, who completed arguably Hitech's best performance in its two-year existence by making it three of the team's cars in the top five, while Carlin man Habsburg was never far adrift.
Joey Mawson survived a first-lap grassy moment at the chicane with Van Amersfoort Racing team-mate Harrison Newey to take a lonely seventh, while Newey went on to claim eighth.
Newey had to fend off the Motopark machine of Joel Eriksson, who made swift early progress from 17th on the grid but lacked the pace to mount an attack on Newey.
Instead, Eriksson had to keep an eye on his mirrors for Carlin's Force India-backed Jehan Daruvala, who passed Nikita Mazepin to take the final point.
Norris's closest title rival Maximilian Gunther, who bemoaned an "unbelievable" lack of grip in qualifying, could only recover to 12th, meaning Norris's points lead has gone out to 54.
Race two result
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Laps | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jake Hughes | Hitech GP | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 35m37.113s |
2 | Lando Norris | Carlin | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 0.539s |
3 | Callum Ilott | Prema Powerteam | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 12.767s |
4 | Tadasuke Makino | Hitech GP | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 13.814s |
5 | Ralf Aron | Hitech GP | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 15.205s |
6 | Ferdinand Habsburg | Carlin | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 16.196s |
7 | Joey Mawson | Van Amersfoort Racing | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 26.790s |
8 | Harrison Newey | Van Amersfoort Racing | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 33.639s |
9 | Joel Eriksson | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 36.104s |
10 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 37.452s |
11 | Maximilian Guenther | Prema Powerteam | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 40.309s |
12 | Sacha Fenestraz | Carlin | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 41.728s |
13 | Guanyu Zhou | Prema Powerteam | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 44.965s |
14 | Mick Schumacher | Prema Powerteam | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 45.722s |
15 | David Beckmann | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 47.342s |
16 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech GP | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 47.919s |
17 | Pedro Piquet | Van Amersfoort Racing | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 48.108s |
18 | Max Defourny | Van Amersfoort Racing | Dallara/Mercedes | 26 | 49.647s |
19 | Keyvan Andres | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 54.836s |
20 | Petru Florescu | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 59.408s |
21 | Ameya Vaidyanathan | Carlin | Dallara/Volkswagen | 26 | 59.874s |
- | Marino Sato | Motopark | Dallara/Volkswagen | 2 | Retirement |
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