PREMA Racing’s Dennis Hauger sealed the Formula 3 Drivers’ title with a peerless efficiency in Speed 1 at Sochi but narrowly missed out on clinching the crown with a resolve, ending 2d heading within the appropriate direction to Charouz Racing System’s Logan Sargeant.
With Jack Doohan struggling down in 15th after a provocative delivery, Hauger wanted upright six aspects to clinch the crown, but the Norwegian wished to cap it off standard. Having started the dawdle in fourth, he had risen to 2d midway by blueprint of and set off in pursuit of Sargeant and first space.
And though he succeeded in cutting down the American’s 3.5s wait on, the Norwegian used to be unable to prevent Sargeant from claiming a first victory for greater than a year.
The success makes Hauger the third F3 winner and sees him educate within the footsteps of 2019 and 2020 champions Robert Shwartzman and Oscar Piastri, who also took the title with PREMA.
Reverse polesitter Victor Martins lost first space to Sargeant on the delivery but did prepare to dangle on to a podium location, sooner than Trident’s Clément Novalak and his MP Motorsport teammate, Caio Collet.
AS IT HAPPENED
With heavy rain anticipated on Saturday, Speed 1 had been brought forward to Friday night, but that gave the discipline little or no time to prepare for a 20-lap spectacle that can per chance take care of the title.
Not that a shortage of preparation used to be glaring on the delivery. Reverse polesitter Martins received a honest leap off the line and tried to provide protection to P1 by cutting in front of Sargeant, but the American had viewed it coming and lunged to the left of the MP motorsport heading into the first flip.
The duo endured brawling facet-by-facet by blueprint of to Turn 4 sooner than a wide 2d from the Frenchman allowed Sargeant to drag forward.
The leisure of the tip 5, collectively with Hauger, retained their positions on the pause of the first lap. Meanwhile, Doohan had slipped from 12th to 15th and used to be provisionally out of the title dawdle. That didn’t terminate Hauger from transferring forwards as the Norwegian stole the closing podium location from Jak Crawford.
Sargeant had increased his lead to just a few.5s on the front as Hauger began to reel in Martins, pulling off a DRS-fuelled transfer on the MP Motorsport man for 2d. The PREMA had his eyes locked on sealing the title with a resolve and there had been seven laps left for him to get as much as the dawdle leader.
Tijmen Van der Helm’s MP Motorsport went up in smoke with 5 laps to transfer and brought out a Virtual Security Automobile. The marshal’s like a flash work spared the necessity for a fats Security Automobile and guarded Sargeant’s lead.
Nonetheless, Hauger’s hunt of Sargeant intensified when racing resumed and he chanced on himself within DRS differ of the American on the closing lap, but with upright three corners to transfer, he ran out of street and crossed the line within the support of the Charouz in 2d, with the Czech team claiming their first F3 resolve.
Martins accomplished the podium as Novalak pulled off a unhurried transfer on Collet for fourth. Colombo and Leclerc took sixth and seventh, sooner than Frederik Vesti, Juan Manuel Correa and Ayumu Iwasa.
Crawford fell out of the tip 10 but did dangle onto 11th for a location on the front row of Speed 2’s reverse grid. He’ll delivery within the support of Johnathan Hoggard, who completed 12th.
KEY QUOTE – LOGAN SARGEANT (CHAROUZ RACING SYSTEM
“I appreciate sooner or later gotten a resolve – I was resolute now to no longer transfer a season with out a resolve. I had a terribly honest delivery and then tried to take care of an eye on the tyres as ideal as I could well, but then towards the pause Dennis (Hauger) used to be coming in actual fact immediate.
“I’m in actual fact happy that I could well dangle on and give Charouz their first victory. I’m searching at for the following few days.”
THE CHAMPIONSHIP VIEW
Hauger is the Drivers’ champion with two races to spare on 205 aspects, sooner than Doohan on 154 and Novalak on 132. Martins is fourth with 127 aspects and Vesti fifth with 120.
In the Groups’ title struggle, PREMA Racing are top with 368 aspects, sooner than Trident on 341 and ART Big Prix on 238. MP Motorsport are fourth with 220 and Charouz Racing System fifth with 115.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Hoggard will delivery from reverse grid pole in Speed 2 at 1.40pm (local time)
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