Spa Formula 3: Ferrari's Armstrong dominates, Laaksonen in big crash
Ferrari Formula 1 junior Marcus Armstrong won the Spa FIA Formula 3 Championship's second race at Spa in a dominant drive, making up for a poor qualifying
Prema Racing's Armstrong was only 19th on the grid for the first race, but moved up to eighth and took pole for Sunday's encounter in the process.
He extended a lead and moved out of DRS range at the start of the race, before a crash on lap three for Simo Laaksonen brought out a safety car.
MP Motorsport's Laaksonen went off at the exit of Blanchimont at high speed and was buried under the barrier. He was taken to the infield medical centre for checks.
A brief rain shower threatened to complicate the race, but it soon halted and once the barrier was repaired the race resumed on lap nine of 17.
Armstrong again pulled an impressive gap after the restart and wouldn't be matched.
There were no celebrations following the race from the top three in the wake of the death of Formula 2 driver Anthoine Hubert on Saturday.
Renault junior Christian Lundgaard eventually got ahead of Red Bull and Honda junior Yuki Tsunoda - after voicing his displeasure at Tsunoda's defence on the Kemmel Straight - and looked to have established second position in the second half of the race.
But Tsunoda dived down the inside at the end of the Kemmel Straight to take the position back on the penultimate lap.
A last lap battle had decided the podium places on Saturday and the same thing occurred in race two.
Ferrari and SMP junior Robert Shwartzman faked right and made Lundgaard defend, then Shwartzman went all the way around the outside to take third for Prema ahead of Lundgaard and behind Tsunoda.
Points leader Shwartzman's move was even more important as it put another car between him and his closest championship rival Jehan Daruvala, who took fifth for Prema ahead of race one winner Pedro Piquet.
Leonardo Pulcini dropped down the order when pushed off at La Source on lap one, but recovered to seventh.
Honda junior Teppei Natori scored his best result of the season in eighth ahead of Carlin team-mate Felipe Drugovich. Yifei Ye rounded out the top 10 for Hitech Grand Prix.
Championship contender Juri Vips - who is the Red Bull junior most likely to have enough superlicence points for any F1 chance next year - suffered a blow as he was pushed off at the first corner by Tsunoda, who dived up the inside of Pulcini and pushed Pulcini into Vips on lap one.
On the lap eight restart, Vips then broke his front wing and finished 21st.
Race two result
Pos | Driver | Team | Laps | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Marcus Armstrong | Prema Racing | 17 | 42m03.504s |
2 | Yuki Tsunoda | Jenzer Motorsport | 17 | 4.515s |
3 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema Racing | 17 | 5.616s |
4 | Christian Lundgaard | ART Grand Prix | 17 | 6.538s |
5 | Jehan Daruvala | Prema Racing | 17 | 7.612s |
6 | Pedro Piquet | Trident | 17 | 8.200s |
7 | Leonardo Pulcini | Hitech GP | 17 | 9.124s |
8 | Teppei Natori | Carlin | 17 | 10.245s |
9 | Felipe Drugovich | Carlin | 17 | 10.843s |
10 | Yifei Ye | Hitech GP | 17 | 13.881s |
11 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | 17 | 15.469s |
12 | David Beckmann | ART Grand Prix | 17 | 16.613s |
13 | Sebastian Fernandez | Campos Racing | 17 | 16.929s |
14 | Bent Viscaal | HWA | 17 | 18.504s |
15 | Keyvan Andres | HWA | 17 | 20.391s |
16 | Alex Peroni | Campos Racing | 17 | 25.046s |
17 | Andreas Estner | Jenzer Motorsport | 17 | 25.426s |
18 | Fabio Scherer | Charouz | 17 | 25.864s |
19 | Liam Lawson | MP Motorsport | 17 | 26.724s |
20 | Alessio Deledda | Campos Racing | 17 | 27.058s |
21 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | 17 | 1m37.427s |
22 | Lirim Zendeli | Charouz | 15 | 2 Laps |
- | Logan Sargeant | Carlin | 14 | Retirement |
- | Raoul Hyman | Charouz | 14 | Retirement |
- | Max Fewtrell | ART Grand Prix | 13 | Retirement |
- | Jake Hughes | HWA | 9 | Retirement |
- | Devlin Defrancesco | Trident | 9 | Retirement |
- | Simo Laaksonen | MP Motorsport | 2 | Retirement |
- | Niko Kari | Trident | 1 | Retirement |
- | Giorgio Carrara | Jenzer Motorsport | 1 | Retirement |
Drivers' standings
Pos | Driver | Points |
---|---|---|
1 | Robert Shwartzman | 152 |
2 | Jehan Daruvala | 129 |
3 | Juri Vips | 122 |
4 | Marcus Armstrong | 119 |
5 | Christian Lundgaard | 93 |
6 | Pedro Piquet | 74 |
7 | Leonardo Pulcini | 61 |
8 | Max Fewtrell | 57 |
9 | Jake Hughes | 56 |
10 | Yuki Tsunoda | 37 |
11 | Liam Lawson | 22 |
12 | David Beckmann | 20 |
13 | Niko Kari | 15 |
14 | Bent Viscaal | 10 |
15 | Richard Verschoor | 9 |
16 | Felipe Drugovich | 8 |
17 | Lirim Zendeli | 6 |
18 | Alex Peroni | 5 |
19 | Logan Sargeant | 3 |
20 | Simo Laaksonen | 2 |
21 | Teppei Natori | 1 |
22 | Fabio Scherer | 1 |
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