Pau Euro F3: Lotus F1 junior Esteban Ocon wins eventful opener

The Lotus Formula 1 Junior had to defend at the start from Lucas Auer and Max Verstappen, before the race swiftly went under caution.

Alexander Toril had launched over the back of Mitch Gilbert into Pont Oscar and took off for a scary aerial crash, which took just two laps for the marshals to clear up. Ocon gradually inched away from Auer and Verstappen after the restart, but got his break when Auer began to defend from the Dutchman.

On the seventh lap, Auer locked up into the Lycee hairpin, Verstappen squeezed down the inside, and the Austrian had to put two wheels on the pavement into the following left-hand sweeper to retain his second place.

A second safety car, caused by Michele Beretta parking his stricken car on the inside pavement at Parc Beaumont, meant Ocon had to do it all again. But the Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes driver quickly pulled a comfortable margin on Auer's similar Mucke Motorsport car, which in turn was unchallenged by Verstappen's Van Amersfoort Racing Dallara-Volkswagen.

With Nicholas Latifi pulling into the pitlane at the end of the green-flag lap and unable to take up his second-row position, Jake Dennis grabbed the opportunity for his best F3 result to date. He had to work hard, fending off Carlin team-mate Jordan King, who tried a big lunge around the outside into the Virage de la Gare after the second restart.

This duo was shadowed by West-Tec's Felix Serralles, who in turn had the Jagonya Ayam with Carlin car of Antonio Giovinazzi right behind.

Ed Jones shook off his qualifying mega-shunt to take eighth in his Carlin machine, while the second Jagonya Ayam with Carlin driver, Sean Gelael, had to concede ninth to Spike Goddard when the Australian made a brave move into Gare mid-race in his T-Sport Dallara-NBE.

Unusually for Pau, there was plenty of successful overtaking lower down the order, with Felix Rosenqvist carving through from 22^nd to 14^th with a series of late-race moves - he took two in one go when Antonio Fuoco and Felipe Guimaraes got all squirrelly at Lycee in their battle.

Results - 27 laps:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car                          Time/Gap
 1.  Esteban Ocon        Prema Dallara-Merc              35m36.291s
 2.  Lucas Auer          Mucke Dallara-Merc                 +2.922s
 3.  Max Verstappen      Van Amersfoort Dallara-VW          +5.951s
 4.  Jake Dennis         Carlin Dallara-VW                 +11.368s
 5.  Jordan King         Carlin Dallara-VW                 +12.673s
 6.  Felix Serralles     West-Tec Dallara-Merc             +14.710s
 7.  Antonio Giovinazzi  Carlin Dallara-VW                 +15.797s
 8.  Ed Jones            Carlin Dallara-VW                 +21.196s
 9.  Spike Goddard       T-Sport Dallara-NBE               +24.022s
10.  Sean Gelael         Carlin Dallara-VW                 +24.864s
11.  Tom Blomqvist       Carlin Dallara-VW                 +26.059s
12.  John Bryan-Meisner  Fortec Dallara-Merc               +26.510s
13.  Dennis van de Laar  Prema Dallara-Merc                +26.715s
14.  Felix Rosenqvist    Mucke Dallara-Merc                +28.113s
15.  Gustavo Menezes     Van Amersfoort Dallara-VW         +29.548s
16.  Felipe Guimaraes    Double R Dallara-Merc             +29.672s
17.  Antonio Fuoco       Prema Dallara-Merc                +30.443s
18.  Tatiana Calderon    Jo Zeller Dallara-Merc            +34.853s
19.  Jules Szymkowiak    Van Amersfoort Dallara-VW         +35.525s
20.  Roy Nissany         Mucke Dallara-Merc                +42.210s
21.  Hector Hurst        West-Tec Dallara-Merc             +45.011s

Retirements:

     Riccardo Agostini   Eurointernational Dallara-Merc     26 laps
     Michele Beretta     Eurointernational Dallara-Merc     12 laps
     Nicholas Latifi     Prema Dallara-Merc                  0 laps
     Mitchell Gilbert    Fortec Dallara-Merc                 0 laps
     Alexander Toril     T-Sport Dallara-NBE                 0 laps