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Ricciardo ends losing streak at Spa

Championship leader Daniel Ricciardo ended a losing streak of eight races for Carlin Motorsport by winning the first British Formula 3 race of the weekend at Spa this afternoon

The Red Bull-backed Australian streaked away from his third pole position of the season, broke the tow on the first lap and strolled to a comfortable victory.

Team-mate Max Chilton started alongside on the front row, but stalled and tumbled down the order. Welsh racer Hywel Lloyd lost the opportunity to cash in on a career-best fourth place on the grid, when he clipped Chilton's stricken Dallara-Volkswagen while trying to squeeze around his rival on the outside line. Both toured back to the pits with the resultant punctures.

A collision at La Source eliminated Fortec's Riki Christodoulou, championship contender Walter Grubmuller (Hitech) and Double R's Daisuke Nakajima on the first lap and the safety car was thus deployed for a couple of laps.

Renger van der Zande held second initially, but struggled for pace and eventually fell to fourth as ART team-mates Jules Bianchi and Valtteri Bottas each found a way past.

Bianchi set off after Ricciardo, but even with the fastest lap of the weekend so far he couldn't bridge the gap, while Bottas only made it past van der Zande on the penultimate lap and was left too far behind to challenge after getting caught up in an early fight with Double R's Carlos Huertas.

The Colombian just about hung on to Bottas and van der Zande, but he had stalled on the green flag lap and failed to restart before all his rivals had left the grid, so a penalty dropped him from fifth to 18th.

Thus Carlin's Jake Rozenzweig was promoted to fifth on his British F3 debut, while T-Sport's Adriano Buzaid, who has pole for tomorrow's second race, rounded out the top six.

ART's third driver Esteban Gutierrez survived contact on the start/finish straight with T-Sport's Wayne Boyd, who disappeared from the race with three laps to go, to finish seventh, three seconds clear of Fortec's Victor Garcia, who kept out of trouble to take eighth.

Chilton and Lloyd recovered from their startline drama to round out the top 10, while Fortec's Daniel McKenzie claimed an unchallenged National Class victory after T-Sport's Gabriel Dias, who ran as high as sixth overall early on, dropped to the tail of the field with a quarter of the race to run.

Pos Driver                  Team                Car        Time/Gap
 1. Daniel Ricciardo        Carlin              D/V      32m06.562s
 2. Jules Bianchi           ART                 D/M         +1.509s
 3. Valtteri Bottas         ART                 D/M         +8.869s
 4. Renger van der Zande    Hitech              D/M         +9.817s
 5. Jake Rozenzweig         Carlin              D/V        +19.529s
 6. Adriano Buzaid          T-Sport             D/V        +24.505s
 7. Esteban Gutierrez       ART                 D/M        +25.945s
 8. Victor Garcia           Fortec              D/M        +28.523s
 9. Max Chilton             Carlin              D/V        +28.817s
10. Hywel Lloyd             CF Racing           D/H        +32.725s
11. Philip Major            Carlin              D/V        +34.542s
12. Henry Arundel           Carlin              D/V        +38.070s
13. Jay Bridger             Litespeed           M/H        +38.531s
14. Stephane Richelmi       Barazi-Epsilon      D/M        +38.689s
15. Daniel McKenzie         Fortec              D/H        +39.837s
16. Kevin Chen              Double R            D/M        +52.721s
17. Nico Marroc             Racing Experience   D/M      +1m11.237s
18. Carlos Huertas          Double R            D/M      +1m12.424s
19. Victor Correa           Litespeed           S/H      +1m13.323s
20. Gabriel Dias            T-Sport             D/H      +1m39.575s

Retirements

  Wayne Boyd                T-Sport             D/V          9 laps
  Riki Christodoulou        Fortec              D/M          0 laps
  Daisuke Nakajima          Double R            D/M          0 laps
  Walter Grubmuller         Hitech              D/M          0 laps

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