Franco Colapinto turned pole position into a win, during a chaotic penultimate race of the F3 season that saw Oliver Bearman finish in P2 and Caio Collet in P3.
Colapinto held a commanding lead throughout the race, starting with a brilliant run off the line he immediately covered off Caio Collet behind. The young Argentine then executed his safety car restart perfectly by leaving it until the very last moment to successfully retain his lead. On the last lap Bearman had started to close the gap behind, however miscommunication allowed Colapinto to claim his second victory of the season.
“I’m really happy and really proud of all of the team after all the hard work they’ve been doing all year as a new team. I’m really impressed with the pace we had all race, leading the whole race at Monza was something I didn’t think we’d be able to do.”
Franco Colapinto
Taking advantage of others’ mistakes and accidents, Bearman climbed from P7 to P2 in a race that saw him make clear his intentions in the current championship fight – Saturday’s result now puts him 13 points behind current leader Victor Martins. Speaking on the radio after the chequered flag, it became apparent that the Brit was under the impression he had another lap to go. His engineer apologised for the mishap over the radio however after closing the gap to Colapinto to 0.1s, Bearman indicated later in the press conference that he would have been able to fight for the race win more effectively, had he known.
“I was driving like I had one more lap because I thought the last lap was the penultimate lap. So, I just wanted to get close within half a second so I could pass into Turn 1 and I did that, but then the chequered flag came out, so that was the end.”
Oliver Bearman
After fending off a number of attacks from behind, Caio Collet finished the race in P3, a slightly disappointing finish for the Brazilian who spent most of the race securely in P2. Whilst trying to challenge Colapinto ahead, Collet was pushed closer and closer to Jonny Edgar and the growing DRS train behind. A minor mistake saw him briefly drop out of the podium places, but a hard fought battle helped him climb back to P3.
“I made a mistake in Parabolica and Jonny got a bit too close, and obviously Ollie as well. So I went back to P4 and then fought back my way to the podium. It’s just a small mistake from my side in Parabolica that caused me to be a bit too far from him and I had to defend in Turn 1. I missed out a bit on the win, but of course the podium it’s really nice.”
Caio Collet
How the championships stand
With Isack Hadjar finishing out of the points and Victor Martins in the final points position, current leader Martins has extended his lead over Hadjar to six points. A poor sprint race result dropped Roman Stanek down two positions as Oliver Bearman and Zane Maloney rise to 3rd and 4th respectively – they’re now closing the gap to the championship leaders. Saturday’s win also allowed Franco Colapinto to take 9th from Alexander Smolyar.