European F3 Zandvoort: Antonio Giovinazzi wins in opening race

Giovinazzi made a decent start from pole, and the Italian Jagonya Ayam protege moved his Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen across to defend his line into the first corner from Rosenqvist.

Rosenqvist rarely relented in his chase, the Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes frequently less than half a second behind Giovinazzi, but with around four laps to go the leader begin to pull away again, and by the end of the race he had eked out just over a second on the Swede, whose tyres were fading badly from his close pursuit.

"When I saw I was P1 after the first corner I just managed the gap," said Giovinazzi. "This track is very aggressive on tyres so from mid-race I was concentrating on managing them, and I know it's quite difficult to overtake here unless the guy in front makes a mistake."

Markus Pommer stayed third throughout the race, the Motopark Dallara-VW driver, winner of last year's German F3 title, thereby taking his first European F3 podium.

A fast-starting Lance Stroll, from sixth on the grid in his Prema car, and Van Amersfoort Racing's championship leader Charles Leclerc stayed pretty close to Pommer in the early going until the German pulled away.

Jake Dennis dropped from fourth on the grid to sixth, and his mid-season gloom was compounded when he was given a drive-through penalty for jumping the start - he rejoined but pitted with a few laps remaining.

Dennis's drive-through moved a chase between Carlin driver George Russell and Signature man Alexander Albon up a place, the two rarely far apart in sixth and seventh respectively, and both looming larger in Leclerc's mirrors by the end of the race.

Santino Ferrucci was in the mix with these two at the beginning of the race, but a gravelly moment sent him pitwards for attention to the car, elevating Mucke Motorsport team-mate Mikkel Jensen to eighth.

Nabil Jeffri's sixth-fastest qualifying performance was converted to 11^th due to a five-place grid penalty for a Norisring collision, but Motopark's Malaysian moved up in the race to claim his first Euro F3 points for ninth.

Another Mucke driver, Maximilian Gunther, was running in the top 10 when he was given a black-and-orange flag for a wobbly nose and pitted, so Prema-run Brandon Maisano claimed the final point.

Midfield attention was focused on Sam MacLeod, who zapped Dorian Boccolacci, Raoul Hyman and finally Arjun Maini as he rose to 12^th - from 21^st on the grid - behind Callum Ilott.

RESULT - 23 LAPS: