Hungaroring F3: Ahmed doubles up after wild first lap

Ahmed’s win meant he became the first two-time Euro F3 winner this season and extends his points lead, after beating Red Bull junior Dan Ticktum.

From the front row, Ticktum this time made a better start than poleman Ahmed, but Marcus Armstrong made his traditional fantastic getaway from third on the grid. That meant the three ran three-abreast down to Turn 1 before Ahmed, in the middle, backed out.

Ticktum was on the inside, but locked a wheel and ran wide, so he was level with Armstrong through the corner. They collided on the exit, giving the Prema Powerteam car of Ferrari protege Armstrong race-ending damage.

As Ahmed slipped through to lead, Alex Palou and Robert Shwartzman passed the recovering Ticktum, only to collide at Turn 2 – Shwartzman was out, while Palou was forced into the pits and rejoined, before stopping at half-distance.

Now Ticktum was back up to second, and the Motopark driver took advantage of a full-course yellow – called for the stricken car of Shwartzman – to be right on the tail of Ahmed when the race went green.

But Ahmed soon began building up an advantage, and his Hitech GP Dallara-Mercedes sailed into the distance to the tune of 7.2 seconds by the chequered flag.

Ticktum was shadowed for most of the race by Mick Schumacher, who as usual showed great judgement on the opening lap to rise from ninth to third – but that was as far as the Prema driver got.

Motopark’s Juri Vips was another to have a strong opening lap to rise to fourth, but fell away from Schumacher, although he was never troubled by Prema-run Ferrari junior Guan Yu Zhou.

Carlin’s Renault prospect Sacha Fenestraz was sixth, while Prema ace Ralf Aron pulled off a fine manoeuvre on the Motopark machine of Fabio Scherer to take seventh.

Behind Scherer, Jonathan Aberdein (Motopark) was ninth, while Nikita Troitskiy claimed his maiden Euro F3 point in his Carlin car after setting fastest lap in the second race of the weekend.

Two more Carlin drivers were in trouble: Jehan Daruvala stalled from his second-row starting position and spent his race battling through the midfield to 11th, while Ferdinand Habsburg dropped to the back after a first-lap clash with Hitech’s Ben Hingeley, who was forced out due to the damage.

Race results:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time/Gap
1	Enaam Ahmed	Hitech GP	34'54.062
2	Dan Ticktum	Motopark	7.225
3	Mick Schumacher	Prema Powerteam	8.914
4	Juri Vips	Motopark	12.559
5	Guan Yu Zhou	Prema Powerteam	13.917
6	Sacha Fenestraz	Carlin	15.514
7	Ralf Aron	Prema Powerteam	20.154
8	Jonathan Aberdein	Motopark	22.749
9	Nikita Troitskiy	Carlin	23.964
10	Fabio Scherer	Motopark	26.216
11	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	26.497
12	Sebastian Fernandez	Motopark	30.942
13	Keyvan Andres	Van Amersfoort Racing	32.341
14	Artem Petrov	Van Amersfoort Racing	33.269
15	Devlin Defrancesco	Carlin	34.046
16	Ferdinand Habsburg	Carlin	34.578
17	Marino Sato	Motopark	37.446
18	Ameya Vaidyanathan	Carlin	38.384
19	Petru Florescu	Fortec	48.200
20	Julian Hanses	ma-con	54.346
Ret	Alex Palou	Hitech GP	-
Ret	Ben Hingeley	Hitech GP	-
Ret	Marcus Armstrong	Prema Powerteam	-
Ret	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Powerteam	-