Paul Ricard F3: Shwartzman wins sprint race with double overtake

Reverse-grid pole-sitter Peroni led a group of five drivers in the first half of the race, with Shwartzman only sitting fifth early on.

The championship leader pounced five laps into the race by passing Bent Viscaal and Pedro Piquet in quick succession.

Then, as Yuki Tsunoda demoted Peroni to second, Shwartzman was able use DRS to move past both drivers at Turn 8 in one move and take the lead.

In the same moment, Peroni went off, narrowly avoiding hitting Shwartzman, and dropped down to fifth as a result.

Shwartzman quickly extended his lead to over a second over Tsunoda, the Japanese driver soon demoted by Piquet and Jehan Daruvala.

Daruvala quickly stole second from Piquet to form a Prema 1-2, but was unable to deal with Shwartzman's two-second lead.

Instead, Daruvala was soon attacked by Piquet, the Brazilian pulling off a DRS move on the penultimate lap.

At the front, Shwartzman won by 1.4s with Piquet and Daruvala completing the podium.

Tsunoda struggled for pace in the late stages and couldn't hold on to fourth, which was secured by Richard Verschoor (MP), who scored his first points of the season.

Like in Race 1, the third Prema of Marcus Armstrong was hit with misfortune as he stalled from third on the grid but he completed a superb recovery race to fifth, having significantly better pace than those around him in the final few laps.

The New Zealander gained an extra position after the race as Liam Lawson, who crossed the line fifth, was among several drivers to get five-second penalties, the Australian settling for sixth.

Jake Hughes (HWA) came from 25th on the grid to, along with Logan Sargeant (Carlin), finish in the last two point-scoring places.

Both drivers benefited from another penalty applied to Tsunoda, whose five second added to his time was for forcing another driver off-track.

Tsunoda was classified ninth ahead of Felipe Drugovich as long-time race leader Peroni had to settle for 14th.

David Beckmann retired with a puncture while fighting in the points as Niko Kari's race ended with contact, soon after he was given a drive-through penalty.

Fabio Scherer and Teppei Natori also went off, while Sebastian Fernandez retired in the pits and Simo Laaksonen also retired.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Robert Shwartzman	Prema Powerteam	20
2	Pedro Piquet	Trident	20	1.4
3	Jehan Daruvala	Prema Powerteam	20	2.8
4	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	20	8.3
5	Marcus Armstrong	Prema Powerteam	20	15.1
6	Liam Lawson	MP Motorsport	20	16.2
7	Jake Hughes	HWA AG	20	21.3
8	Logan Sargeant	Carlin	20	21.9
9	Yuki Tsunoda	Jenzer Motorsport	20	22.9
10	Felipe Drugovich	Carlin	20	25.6
11	Andreas Estner	Jenzer Motorsport	20	25.6
12	Leonardo Pulcini	HitechGP	20	25.9
13	Raoul Hyman	Charouz Racing System	20	29.7
14	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing	20	30.3
15	Christian Lundgaard	ART Grand Prix	20	31.4
16	Lirim Zendeli	Charouz Racing System	20	32.0
17	Jüri Vips	HitechGP	20	32.5
18	Max Fewtrell	ART Grand Prix	20	33.9
19	Keyvan Andres	HWA AG	20	34.8
20	Bent Viscaal	HWA AG	20	34.8
21	Devlin DeFrancesco	Trident	20	37.5
22	Ye Yifei	HitechGP	20	66.0
23	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing	20	108.9
24	Niko Kari	Trident	18	2 laps
	Simo Laaksonen	MP Motorsport	16	4 laps
	Sebastian Fernandez	Campos Racing	15	5 laps
	Fabio Scherer	Charouz Racing System	11	9 laps
	Teppei Natori	Carlin	5	15 laps
	David Beckmann	ART Grand Prix	2	18 laps
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