Once again we have a new race winner who is also a F3 rookie on the grid. Martinius Stenshorne survived a late safety car to claim the top spot of the Sprint Race in Australia this weekend ahead of Arvid Lindblad and Laurens van Hoepen.
Its an early start for the round 2 of Formula 3 taking place on the street circuit in Albert Park in Melbourne Australia for the second year on the F3 calendar. We had multiple penalties come through on in the 20 lap sprint race and even a penalty overturned post race.
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As it Happened
It was a better start to the race weekend compared to other support series Formula 2 Sprint Race with the top five drivers remaining the same at lights out. On pole Laurens van Hoepen was able to cover Stenshorne to take the lead, Australian fan favourite Christian Mansell was able to stay third ahead of Oliver Goethe and Lindblad.
Van Hoepen and Stenshorne was in a multi- lap battle for the top spot on lap three which allowed the rest of the top 10 to close the gap to them and be within 3 seconds of each other. On lap 5 of 20 Stenshorne took the lead on the main straight down to turn 1.
Unlucky for Mansell
Lap 6 Mansell was battling a close attack from Lindblad to take the final podium position. At the same time Goethe lost his position to his Campos teammate of Mari Boya. But it wound up not the race Mansell wanted as nearly halfway through the race he dropped down to 13th and out of the points contention, losing 10 spots within 3 laps.
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Halfway through the race
Stenshorne was able to secure a big gap to van Hoepen of over two and half seconds, and even increased it more after van Hoepen was overtaken by Lindblad for second position.
Down the grid Dino Beganovic was coming under attack for Sebastian Montoya, Montoya was able to make a move stick at the run down to turn 1. Eventually, it then became worse for the Swede losing another position to rookie driver Charlie Wurz few corners later on the lap.
Lap 13 Lindblad was able to make ground to reduce the gap between him and Stenshorne from over 2 and half seconds to being within DRS at the start of lap 13. However, it was short lived as a safety car cam shortly out due to another home favourite of Tommy Smith in the PHM AIX Racing colliding with Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak at turn 1. Causing the Thai racer to retire the race with Smith being able to continue on with some minimal damage.
3 Lap shootout
Racing was able to go green again on lap 17 of 20, all the grid was close to each other Stenshorne had Lindblad in his mirror. Beganovic at the start was able to move past Wurz for P8 which caused Wurz to go wide and drop further positions down to 13th.
At the front Lindblad was unable to take another win with Stenshorne coming across the line for his first F3 win. Van Hoepen was able to maintain 3rd to make it an all rookie podium, Boya was able to finish ahead of his teammate Goethe. Beganovic came across the line for sixth, Mini P7, Nikita Bedrin P8, Alex Dunne P9 and Montoya rounding out the points finishers.
Multiple drivers penalised after Melbourne Sprint Race
Shortly after the race concluded multiple drivers received pentalites which affected the points finished and also a race made penalty was overturned afterwards.
Kacper Sztuka received a 5 second penalty for exceeding track limits four times during the race, however after the race video evidence showed track limits took place only 3 times thus making the penalty invalid. As a result five seconds was subtracted to his time and moved his position from 24th to 16th.
Finishing sixth Beganovic was given a five second penalty for forcing another car off track, this meant the Swede to drop to 13th and out of the points. Minì, Dunne, Montoya, Fornaroli and Mansell were each promoted up one place.
Nikita Bedrin has also been given a 10-second time penalty following the conclusion of the Sprint Race. Thus dropping from 8th to 21st in the final race standings.
Max Esterson has been handed a five-second time penalty following the race, due to exceeded track limits four times in the race, he dropped from 19th to 26th.
Tommy Smith was given a 10-second time penalty after his involvement with the collision with Inthraphuvasak which made the Thai driver retire. Smith dropped from 25th to 27th in the classification.
Final Classification of points finishers
Because of the amount of penalties given post race the final sprint race classification is as follows:
Stenshorne P1, Lindblad P2, van Hoepen P3, Boya P4, Goethe P5, Mini P6, Dunne P7, Montoya P8, Fornaroli P9, and Mansell P10 with the last of the points given.
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What’s next for Formula 3?
F3 Feature race takes place tomorrow with Leonardo Fornaroli on pole alongside fellow countrymen of Gabriele Mini. Even though he did not get points in the sprint race Luke Browning narrowly leads the F3 2024 Championship with 25 points followed by Lindblad with 23 and Tim Tramnitz in third with 21 points. The top 7 are all within 10 points of each other so its anyone’s race tomorrow for the full points.