Pau F3: Norris crash hands second victory to Gunther
Maximilian Gunther won the 76th running of the Pau Grand Prix, and his second European Formula 3 race in a row, as Lando Norris crashed out of a comfortable lead.
Photo by: FIA F3 / Suer
Following poor starts in the first two races, polesitter Norris made a perfect getaway and kept his lead over Gunther into the first corner.
In the first lap the Carlin driver immediately established a gap of 1.8 seconds, and with a string of fastest laps the McLaren junior steadily built up his lead to four seconds over Gunther, who in turn was harassed by Prema teammate Callum Ilott.
Two seconds further back Harrison Newey got ahead of Joel Eriksson for fourth, holding up a train of Ralf Aron and Joey Mawson until Aron managed to find a way past the Swede.
The safety car had to come out after seven laps for David Beckmann’s accident at Foch, undoing all the hard work of Norris.
At the restart Norris kept his lead, while Aron made a daring pass on Newey. The Estonian went to the outside of the Briton through Gare corner, which then became the inside for Pont Oscar as they streamed up the hill side-by-side. Aron duly pulled off the move and took fourth.
Meanwhile Mawson pitted his damaged car for a new front wing, but retired one lap later with suspension damage. Jake Hughes dropped out as well.
At the front Norris set about restoring his lead, quickly getting it back up to two seconds.
Keyvan Andres was the next driver to get caught out by the notorious Foch chicane and went into the tyre barriers. Soon after, Nikita Mazepin dropped out with a puncture, possibly caused by the debris of the German's car.
On lap 18, race leader Norris suffered suspension failure and clattered into the barriers at Foch, ending his race and gifting the lead to Gunther.
The German, who also won Sunday morning's second Pau race, established a comfortable margin of 1.8 seconds over Ilott and took home the win, while Aron took the final podium position.
Newey finished fourth again ahead of Eriksson. Habsburg was sixth followed by Tadasuke Makino, while Pedro Piquet, Jake Dennis and Guan Yu Zhou rounded out the top 10.
In the standings Eriksson and Norris are level with 139 points, the former taking the lead by virtue of having won more races this season. Gunther moves up to third, two points down, with Ilott in fourth.
Race results:
Pos. | Driver | Team | Time/Gap |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Maximilian Gunther | Prema Powerteam | 34'23.254 |
2 | Callum Ilott | Prema Powerteam | 1.952 |
3 | Ralf Aron | Hitech GP | 3.237 |
4 | Harrison Newey | Van Amersfoort Racing | 6.786 |
5 | Joel Eriksson | Motopark | 8.386 |
6 | Ferdinand Habsburg | Carlin | 9.395 |
7 | Tadasuke Makino | Hitech GP | 11.453 |
8 | Pedro Piquet | Van Amersfoort Racing | 11.979 |
9 | Jake Dennis | Carlin | 12.272 |
10 | Guan Yu Zhou | Prema Powerteam | 17.826 |
11 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | 20.756 |
12 | Mick Schumacher | Prema Powerteam | 21.234 |
13 | Marino Sato | Motopark | 27.884 |
Ret | Lando Norris | Carlin | |
Ret | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech GP | |
Ret | Keyvan Andres | Motopark | |
Ret | Joey Mawson | Van Amersfoort Racing | |
Ret | Jake Hughes | Hitech GP | |
Ret | David Beckmann | Van Amersfoort Racing |
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