France F3: Arthur Leclerc takes first victory in Prema 1-2

The Monegasque rookie scored his first F3 points for the Italian outfit after starting on reverse grid pole, crossing the finish line ahead of his team-mate, who leads the championship standings.

Prema had looked set to take a podium lock-out, with Olli Caldwell in third, before he was overtaken by MP Motorsport’s Victor Martins on the penultimate lap, taking his second consecutive podium of the weekend.

Alpine Academy driver Martins once again stormed through the field at his home round, finishing third having started 11th. In this morning’s race, he took second, having lined up on the grid in 10th.

Trident’s Jack Doohan finished in fifth, while his team-mate Clement Novalak finished sixth at his home race.

Hitech Grand Prix’s Jak Crawford and MP Motorsport’s Caio Collet both stalled on the starting grid, but managed to get their cars fired up after some time.

Leclerc led into Turn 1, with Caldwell emerging behind him in the fight for second, extending that gap to over a second by the second lap.

Elsewhere, Doohan managed to pass Hitech Grand Prix’s Ayuma Iwasa on lap 2 to take fourth, while Collet’s race was over after he was involved in a collision.

By the fifth lap, Doohan had joined the back of the front three in podium battle, running just a second behind third-placed Hauger, with Martins just one second behind him.

But two laps later, Martins managed to pass Doohan, while Hauger overtook Caldwell for second place, trailing 1.8 seconds behind leader Leclerc – a lead which he had increased to 2.3s by lap 10.

Jack Doohan, Trident and Victor Martins, MP Motorsport

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Carlin’s Ido Cohen was handed a ten-second penalty for causing a collision after he was involved in an incident with HWA Racelab’s Rafael Villagomez – his second penalty of the day after an earlier incident, which also involved Villagomez, gave him a five-second penalty. Cohen later returned to the pits and retired from the race.

Two laps from the end of the race, ART Grand Prix’s Alexander Smolyar, who won this morning’s race, tussled with Hitech Grand Prix’s Ayuma Iwasa and Calan Williams (Jenzer Motorsport) for seventh place, with Smolyar emerging in front. Williams eventually passed Iwasa for eighth on the last lap.

ART Grand Prix’s Frederik Vesti will start on pole in tomorrow’s feature race, with Hauger starting second.

Martins will line up third, with Doohan in fourth and Collet in fifth.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	2	Arthur Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	-
2	1	Dennis Hauger	Prema Powerteam	4.200	4.200
3	17	Victor Martins	MP Motorsport	8.000	8.000
4	3	Olli Caldwell	Prema Powerteam	9.300	9.300
5	4	Jack Doohan	Trident	10.000	10.000
6	5	Clement Novalak	Trident	12.700	12.700
7	8	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	18.000	18.000
8	26	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	20.600	20.600
9	11	Ayumu Iwasa	HitechGP	22.100	22.100
10	7	Frederik Vesti	ART Grand Prix	24.900	24.900
11	6	David Schumacher	Trident	25.300	25.300
12	29	Logan Sargeant	Charouz Racing System	25.800	25.800
13	14	Matteo Nannini	HWA AG	25.900	25.900
14	10	Jak Crawford	HitechGP	26.300	26.300
15	21	Lorenzo Colombo	Campos Racing	30.600	30.600
16	20	Pierre-Louis Chovet	Campos Racing	30.900	30.900
17	9	Juan Manuel Correa	ART Grand Prix	31.400	31.400
18	30	Enzo Fittipaldi	Charouz Racing System	31.500	31.500
19	19	Tijmen van	MP Motorsport	33.600	33.600
20	12	Roman Staněk	HitechGP	34.100	34.100
21	15	Oliver Rasmussen	HWA AG	36.900	36.900
22	24	Kaylen Frederick	Carlin	38.300	38.300
23	25	Jonny Edgar	Carlin	42.100	42.100
24	22	Amaury Cordeel	Campos Racing	46.200	46.200
25	31	Reshad de	Charouz Racing System	52.000	52.000
26	27	Johnathan Hoggard	Jenzer Motorsport	56.100	56.100
27	16	Rafael Villagómez	HWA AG	58.500	58.500
28	28	Filip Ugran	Jenzer Motorsport	1'02.500	1'02.500
	23	Ido Cohen	Carlin	6 laps
	18	Caio Collet	MP Motorsport
View full results