Bahrain GP3: Kirchhofer wins as title contenders fade

All eyes were on the battle between title contenders Esteban Ocon (ART) and Trident’s Luca Ghiotto, who started alongside each other on the front row – Ocon’s pole having given him a two-point lead in the standings.

Ocon smoked his tyres off the starting and led charge to first corner, chopping across the bows of Ghiotto, but was unable to keep the fast-starting Kirchhofer from passing them all down the inside.

Ocon and Ghiotto gave chase, with Kevin Ceccon fourth from Arden teammate Emil Bernstorff, Jimmy Eriksson and Jann Mardenborough.

Kirch led the opening lap by 0.8s over Ocon and Ghiotto, with Bernstorff moving past Ceccon for fourth.

Eriksson attacked Ceccon for fifth, as Mardenborough dropped back to ninth behind Artur Janosz and Alfonso Celis Jr.

Kirchhofer established a 1.6s lead by lap five, by which time Eriksson had battled past Ceccon at Turn 1, and Janosz did likewise exiting Turn 4.

Celis passed Ceccon for seventh on lap 14, but Mardenborough’s attempt to go around his outside at Turn 10 ended with him being bumped off the track.

Ocon began his bid for victory with six laps remaining, closing to within half a second, but Kirchhofer responded to keep him at bay.

Bernstorff also closed right up to Ghiotto as the race neared its conclusion, and outbraked him at Turn 1 to take third with three laps to go.

As Kirchhofer kept his cool out front, Ocon’s attentions were turned to keeping Bernstorff at bay to record what would remarkably have been his 10th consecutive second place finish in the series.

However, after an audacious move at Turn 4 failed, Bernstorff finally pulled it off exiting Turn 8 on the final lap.

Ghiotto faded to a distant fourth – despite setting fastest lap on the final tour – well clear of Eriksson and Janosz. Mardenborough tigered back up the order to seventh, ahead of Celis.

Before the race had started, Alex Palou was pushed off grid from P4.

Bahrain GP3 Race 1 results:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Marvin Kirchhofer	ART Grand Prix	37'11.554
2	Emil Bernstorff	Arden International	37'13.100	1.546
3	Esteban Ocon	ART Grand Prix	37'14.310	2.756
4	Luca Ghiotto	Trident	37'17.231	5.677
5	Jimmy Eriksson	Koiranen GP	37'21.971	10.417
6	Artur Janosz	Trident	37'24.877	13.323
7	Jann Mardenborough	Carlin	37'25.397	13.843
8	Alfonso Celis	ART Grand Prix	37'27.842	16.288
9	Antonio Fuoco	Carlin	37'29.740	18.186
10	Ralph Boschung	Jenzer Motorsport	37'30.454	18.900
11	Matt Parry	Koiranen GP	37'35.164	23.610
12	Matheo Tuscher	Jenzer Motorsport	37'40.504	28.950
13	Sandy Stuvik	Status Grand Prix	37'43.370	31.816
14	Kevin Ceccon	Arden International	37'43.470	31.916
15	Mitch Gilbert	Carlin	37'48.882	37.328
16	Seb Morris	Status Grand Prix	37'49.447	37.893
17	Zaid Ashkanani	Campos Racing	37'51.772	40.218
18	Konstantin Tereschenko	Campos Racing	38'01.982	50.428
19	Alex Fontana	Status Grand Prix	38'04.193	52.639