Red Bull Ring F3: Vesti wins truncated feature race

An increasingly wet Red Bull Ring meant the race was red flagged and not restarted with 10 laps to go.

18-year-old Danish ace Vesti maintained his race lead from his first F3 pole position on the opening lap, while Trident’s Lirim Zendeli had charged from sixth on the grid to second by Turn 1.

Zendeli pressured Prema’s Vesti on the run to Turn 3 on the first lap, but Vesti resisted and remained relatively unchallenged for the remainder of the race.

The first incident in the rain-soaked race came when Formula Renault Eurocup graduate Aleksandr Smolyar spun on the exit of the final lap and brought out the virtual safety car on the fourth lap of the race.

His ART Grand Prix-run car was recovered and the race resumed, only for a full safety car to be required three laps later when Carlin’s Clement Novalak picked up a rear-left puncture and was left facing backwards at the last corner.

Novalak was able to drive back to the pits and the race had two more laps of green flag running before the safety car was required once more.

16-year-old Roman Stanek was beached in the gravel at the penultimate corner while ART’s Sebastian Fernandez was sent spinning into the barriers a few moments later after contact with Enaam Ahmed (Carlin).

The race was red-flagged while under this third safety car period due to the worsening weather conditions and the results were counted from half distance.

This meant series rookie Vesti earned his maiden FIA F3 victory and Zendeli claimed his first-ever podium in the series.

David Beckmann took his first podium in the championship since it was rebranded from GP3, while his Trident teammate Olli Caldwell completed the top four.

Caldwell was able to pass last weekend’s race one victor Oscar Piastri (Prema) at the final restart to demote the 2019 Eurocup champion to fifth place.

MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor battled from 11th on the grid to finish in sixth place, ahead of Prema’s Logan Sargeant and last Sunday’s sprint race winner Liam Lawson.

Reigning German Formula 4 champion Theo Pourchaire earned his first points in the series in ninth place with HWA Racelab’s Jake Hughes claiming the final point and reverse-grid pole for tomorrow’s race.

F3 Red Bull Ring - feature race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Gap
1	2	Frederik Vesti	Prema Powerteam
2	10	Lirim Zendeli	Trident	2.000
3	11	David Beckmann	Trident	3.900
4	12	Olli Caldwell	Trident	4.700
5	1	Oscar Piastri	Prema Powerteam	5.000
6	17	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	6.800
7	3	Logan Sargeant	Prema Powerteam	6.900
8	5	Liam Lawson	HitechGP	7.700
9	7	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	8.600
10	15	Jake Hughes	HWA AG	9.600
11	29	Alexander Peroni	Campos Racing	11.000
12	25	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System	11.600
13	4	Max Fewtrell	HitechGP	12.500
14	9	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix	12.600
15	14	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA AG	13.700
16	19	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport	14.000
17	27	Enaam Ahmed	Carlin	15.200
18	18	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	16.600
19	31	Sophia Flörsch	Campos Racing	17.500
20	6	Dennis Hauger	HitechGP	17.800
21	16	Jack Doohan	HWA AG	18.100
22	22	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport	19.200
23	24	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System	19.900
24	28	Cameron Das	Carlin	21.100
25	20	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	21.600
26	30	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing	22.800
27	21	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport	23.700
28	23	Roman Staněk	Charouz Racing System
29	26	Clement Novalak	Carlin
30	8	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix
View full results