Pau F3: Norris crash hands second victory to Gunther

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