Ferrari protege Raffaele Marciello dominates Pau Formula 3 Grand Prix

The Ferrari Driver Academy recruit got a superb start and just drove away from the opposition. He had a small worry with lapped traffic for around three laps in the closing stages, but other than that he never saw another car.

"My car was perfect," said Marciello. "Forty minutes is a very long race around here, but I managed the car very easily."

A long way behind him, Carlos Sainz Jr claimed second in this FIA European Formula 3 Championship round and also emerged as the victor in the concurrent British F3 International Series classification.

Sainz led a long train of cars for much of the race, suffering from severe wear on the rear tyres on his Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen. On some occasions he came under threat from team-mate Jazeman Jaafar and the second Prema car of Daniel Juncadella. In the closing stages it was Jaafar who looked most at risk of losing his place, but the Malaysian held on confidently under sustained pressure from Juncadella. Sainz's result leapfrogs him back ahead of Jaafar to lead the British standings, and he is also now ahead in the European championship.

"I'm not so happy with the race - the Prema guys were so much quicker than us," he said. "But I'm happy with the result because it means we're leading both championships."

Pipo Derani was the best of the Fortec Motorsport runners and claimed third place in the British classification; the Brazilian passed Felix Rosenqvist (Mucke Motorsport) when the Swede made a mistake and ran wide at the Gare turn. Alex Lynn (Fortec) and Jack Harvey (Carlin) were close behind in the train.

There were numerous incidents among the British series runners: Harry Tincknell smacked his Carlin Dallara into the Pont Oscar tyre wall, while Fortec team-mates Hannes van Asseldonk and Felix Serralles collided at Gare, forcing van Asseldonk out. Meanwhile, Spike Goddard bent his steering when he hit a kerb, forcing a pitstop and promoting Double R Racing's Duvashen Padayachee to National Class victory.

Results - 33 laps

Pos  Driver                Team/Car                  Time/Gap
 1.  Raffaelle Marciello   Prema Dallara-Merc      40m02.512s
 2.  Carlos Sainz Jr       Carlin Dallara-VW        + 13.129s
 3.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin Dallara-VW        + 13.817s
 4.  Daniel Juncadella     Prema Dallara-Merc       + 14.190s
 5.  Pipo Derani           Fortec Dallara-Merc      + 15.797s
 6.  Felix Rosenqvist      Mucke Dallara-Merc       + 16.500s
 7.  Alex Lynn             Fortec Dallara-Merc      + 17.510s
 8.  Jack Harvey           Carlin Dallara-VW        + 19.062s
 9.  Pascal Wehrlein       Mucke Dallara-Merc       + 19.835s
10.  Sven Muller           Prema Dallara-Merc       + 20.939s
11.  Michael Lewis         Prema Dallara-Merc       + 21.861s
12.  Pietro Fantin         Carlin Dallara-VW        + 34.069s
13.  Emil Bernstorff       ma-con Dallara-VW        + 37.861s
14.  Nick McBride          T-Sport Dallara-Nissan   + 54.307s
15.  Fahmi Ilyas           Double R Dallara-Merc    + 57.908s
16.  Sandro Zeller         Jo Zeller Dallara-Merc     + 1 lap
17.  Duvashen Padayachee   Double R Dallara-Mugen     + 1 lap
18.  Geoff Uhrhane         Double R Dallara-Merc      + 1 lap
19.  Felix Serralles       Fortec Dallara-Merc       + 2 laps
20.  Spike Goddard         T-Sport Dallara-Mugen     + 2 laps
21.  Tom Blomqvist         ma-con Dallara-VW         + 2 laps

Retirements:

     Hannes van Asseldonk  Fortec Dallara-Merc        13 laps
     Harry Tincknell       Carlin Dallara-VW           9 laps
     Andrea Roda           Jo Zeller Dallara-Merc       1 lap