By Arabella
This weekend, Formula 3 headed to Spa-Francorchamps for round five of the FIA Formula 3 championship. Much of the weekend was rain affected making wet weather tyres a necessity and drivers full concentration required on the quickly changing conditions at the start of the weekend. During practice, we saw a near collision between Amaury Cordeel and Jonny Edgar near pit entry - bringing some action before racing had even started. It was Clement Novalak who set the fastest time in practice with a 2:05.330 around the 7.004 KM lap and giving us the first insight that Trident would be strong contenders this weekend. A rain affected qualifying is what would come next, however, that didn’t stop Jack Doohan setting the fastest time in qualifying and securing pole by seven tenths of a second. This qualifying also ended Prema Racings 21-round streak of qualifying in the top 10 and the drivers also missed out on the reverse grid pole slot.
Race 1 started behind the safety car due the conditions until lap 4 when the cars went racing. Lorenzo Colombo led the way over the line getting a brilliant start on the way down to Eau Rouge and behind, Caio Collet and Victor Martins battled each other as Logan Sargeant got involved too. Collet then charged down the road to catch Novalak and took 7th position. Ido Cohen unfortunately retired on lap 5 of the race and lap 7 saw another incident being Rafael Villagomez into the tire walls at Les Combes. Collet was back and this time pulling a move on Frederik Vesti and nearly running into the back of him, just managing to get the MP motorsport stopped in time. Almost immediately after, Victor Martins managed to pull the overtake on Clement Novalak just before heading up the iconic Eau Rouge and securing 8th place. Big drama on lap 13 led to a 3-car battel between David Schumacher, Johnathan Hoggard and Caio Collet with Schumacher and Hoggard going wheel to wheel up the hill with Hoggard just managing to win out however Caio Collet overtook Schumacher and Vesti off the road, later leading to a 5 second penalty. Martins then comes into play, getting ahead of Schumacher leaving him down in 8th. Vesti got up to 4th as Collet had 2 wheels on the grass on the Kammel straight. In the end though it was Lorenzo Colombo who won race 1 as his first race win in F3 followed by Jak Crawford and Roman Staneak.
Race 2 was another wet race however not having to start behind the safety car led to an action packed first few corners seeing Alex Smolyar run wide and 3rd for Logan Sargeant having Caio Collet right on his rear wing. Martins ran wide off the road meaning Vesti secured 6th position in their little tangle. Zdenek Chovanec was spun round at the final chicane on lap 2 trying to go round the outside. Lap 4 consisted of Arthur Leclerc attempting to go round the outside of Hoggard however contact saw Hoggard spin and drop down the order rapidly. Ollie Caldwell managed to get past Matteo Nannini followed by race 1 winner Colombo and later on Nannini then went on to lose the car to the run off in a spin, bringing out the safety car. Lap 14 is when the race was green flagged and Jack Doohan lead the way again and behind, Dennis Hauger made moves on Leclerc for 9th. The safety car was then deployed again due to Calan Williams and Cordeel having contact due to a spin. The safety car lead until the end of the race and saw Jack Doohan take victory followed by Schumacher and Sargent.
Race three was just 14 laps long due to formation laps behind the safety car. Doohan kept the lead in front of Martins and Smolyer and behind, Hauger and Columbo battled away with Hauger winning out and taking 12th on lap 2. Nannini’s bad luck this weekend got even worse after contact leading to a puncture and a need for a new set of tyres. Lap 3 was when we saw Hauger battling again, this time it was with Crawford for 11th however the Championship leader was not done there -on lap 5 he went side by side with Hoggard and snatched 9th. Further down the road, we saw the battle for first with Martins challenging Doohan for the lead, however, had all 4 wheels off the road when the overtake happened and the place was later given back to Doohan. Lap 10 saw another great overtake by Hauger - this time on Schumacher… The radio message of “haha good one, good one” described the overtake well. Vesti managed to overtake Sargeant for 6th in one of the most used overtaking spots on the track being turn 5 by out breaking and using momentum to his advantage. Jack Doohan took back-to-back victories in Spa winning race 3 followed by Martins and Smolyar.
This weekend definitely belonged to Jack Doohan- taking pole and 2 victories. The results of this weekend have left the championship standings changed leaving only 25 points between Doohan and championship leader Hauger. Can Doohan continue to close the gap or will Hauger clinch the title?
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