Bottas claims maiden F3 Euro win

The Finn took a relatively comfortable win ahead of Signature pairing Marco Wittmann and Edoardo Mortara, as the top three drivers from race one worked their way through to all make the podium in the reversed grid race as well.

Bottas got from sixth on the grid to third at the start, and began hunting down race leader Alexander Sims once the two of them had passed early leader Roberto Merhi.

Sims surrendered the lead on the exit of Turn 1 on lap 21, and after that Bottas made a gap while his ART team-mate fought to keep the Signature cars at bay.

His lead was given a boost just a handful of laps later, when third place Mortara lost control slightly under braking for the first corner and tagged Sims. That pushed both of them wide enough for Wittmann to jump into second, but the German was unable to reel in Bottas.

Mortara eventually passed Sims for third, but he was unable to make inroads into Wittmann's advantage until the closing stages. He closed to within half a second at the end, but it was too little too late.

Sims took a distant fourth, while Laurens Vanthoor completed the Signature/ART domination of the weekend by rounding out the top five after fighting his way up from ninth on the grid.

The scrap for the final point was a fierce once. Merhi looked set to be best of the rest until he was spun round by a combination of Vanthoor and Mathias Laine. Laine and his Motopark team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa then scrapped over the place, and even banged wheels at one point.

That enabled Daniel Juncadella to fight for the place as well, and the Prema driver secured the position when da Costa hit the wall at the chicane while trying to defend from the Spaniard.

Pos  Driver                  Team       Car    Time/Gap
 1.  Valtteri Bottas         ART        D/M  39m42.130s
 2.  Marco Wittmann          Signature  D/V    + 1.937s
 3.  Edoardo Mortara         Signature  D/V    + 2.524s
 4.  Alexander Sims          ART        D/M    + 7.891s
 5.  Laurens Vanthoor        Signature  D/V   + 13.458s
 6.  Daniel Juncadella       Prema      D/M   + 26.079s
 7.  Matias Laine            Motopark   D/V   + 32.415s
 8.  Jim Pla                 ART        D/M   + 35.582s
 9.  Carlos Munoz            Mucke      D/M   + 35.778s
10.  Nicolas Marroc          Prema      D/M   + 36.746s
11.  Roberto Merhi           Mucke      D/M   + 43.436s

Retirements:

     Antonio Felix-da-Costa  Motopark   D/V  32 laps