Silverstone British F3: Alex Lynn claims first series victory
Alex Lynn dominated the first race of the British Formula 3 International Series weekend at Silverstone to take his maiden win in the championship
The 18-year-old Englishman led comfortably into the first corner and then extended his advantage throughout the race to cross the line more than 10 seconds in front of Jazeman Jaafar.
No one could touch the Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes, which also set fastest lap, although investigations are ongoing into whether he jumped the start.
"It was just a really good start," said Lynn, the reigning Formula Renault UK champion. "It's not very often a day like this comes along, but when it does you've got to grab it with both hands."
But Jaafar said: "It's impossible to pull three car lengths into Copse Corner - I saw it [Lynn jumping the start] with my own eyes."
Jaafar's runner-up spot allowed him to close the gap in the championship to Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen team-mate Jack Harvey to 17 points, and the Malaysian is just four behind runner-up Felix Serralles.
Harvey claimed more points on the final lap, when he finally found a way around team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr on the outside at Luffield to pip the Spaniard to third by less than six hundredths of a second.
The other Carlin runners, Harry Tincknell and Pietro Fantin, were fifth and sixth. While Tincknell faded away from the leading group, Fantin held off the Double R Racing Dallara-Mercedes of British F3 returnee Rupert Svendsen-Cook.
Although it was a great race for Fortec driver Lynn, the team's other drivers had a disaster. Serralles stalled at the start but climbed the order to 10th. He then gained two more places on the final lap when Nick McBride and Geoff Uhrhane collided just in front of him.
Meanwhile, Pipo Derani was given a drive-through penalty for having a mechanic working outside the time limit before the green-flag lap; he recovered to ninth. And Hannes van Asseldonk was running fifth when he dropped out due to mechanical problems.
With Lynn drawing the number '9' for the reversed grid, that gave Derani and Serralles the front row for Sunday's second race, handing Serralles a great chance to claw points back on Harvey.
Spike Goddard held his opposition at arm's length to win the National Class in his T-Sport Dallara.
Results - 15 laps: Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Alex Lynn Fortec Dallara-Merc 28m51.808s 2. Jazeman Jaafar Carlin Dallara-VW + 10.559s 3. Jack Harvey Carlin Dallara-VW + 18.402s 4. Carlos Sainz Jr Carlin Dallara-VW + 18.459s 5. Harry Tincknell Carlin Dallara-VW + 26.938s 6. Pietro Fantin Carlin Dallara-VW + 30.937s 7. Rupert Svendsen-Cook Double R Dallara-Merc + 31.466s 8. Felix Serralles Fortec Dallara-Merc + 33.995s 9. Pipo Derani Fortec Dallara-Merc + 49.379s 10. Spike Goddard T-Sport Dallara-Mugen* + 53.543s 11. Pedro Calbimonte T-Sport Dallara-Mugen* + 55.629s 12. Duvashen Padayachee Double R Dallara-Mugen* + 59.881s Retirements: Nick McBride T-Sport Dallara-Nissan 14 laps Geoff Uhrhane Double R Dallara-Merc 14 laps Hannes van Asseldonk Fortec Dallara-Merc 6 laps * = National class
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