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Arthur Leclerc took his maiden F3 victory in emphatic style as he breezed to victory at Paul Ricard ahead of Dennis Hauger and Victor Martins in third, who left it late to jump into the podium places.
Starting Grid
On pole position was Arthur Leclerc, after his heroic drive in Saturday’s dramatic race one where he made up 18 positions, coming from 30th on the grid after a mechanical issue in qualifying, to finishing 12th meaning that he started from first by claiming reverse grid pole position. Alongside the Monegasque on the grid’s front row was Jak Crawford after the American finished 11th in race one.
On row two, Olli Caldwell lined up ahead of championship leader Dennis Hauger – the Norwegian driver hoped to pull away from Victor Martins who was tied on points with the Prema driver.
As It Happened
As the lights went out, Crawford and Ciao Collet stalled and failed to getaway. Thankfully, everyone avoided the young drivers and got away cleanly. Caldwell took avoiding action of Crawford and promoted himself up into second.
Leclerc got the best start as he led over his fellow Prema drivers, Caldwell and Hauger, at the end of lap one and started to form a comfortable gap over the course of the second lap.
Juan Manuel Correa was overtaken by Clement Novalak at turn 11 on lap three, as the Frenchman hugged the apex and swiftly slipped past the American.
Calan Williams was the next driver to make a move on Correa, as he slotted his Jenzer car up the inside of the American’s ART car at the start of lap four.
Caldwell continued to make inroads on leader Leclerc, as the Brit tried to close in on Hauger at the summit of the Drivers’ Standings.
The Prema Racing driver closed the gap to half a second to Leclerc and was in slipstream territory. It was a matter of ‘when’ not ‘if’ that he’d size-up a move on the Monegasque.
Victor Martins made a move on Jack Doohan at turn eight on lap seven, a brave but well-executed lunge from the Frenchman moved him up to fourth.
Hauger mirrored Martins’ move a lap later as he promoted himself into second past Caldwell, despite being squeezed onto the inside of the track by the Brit just before the braking zone.
Meanwhile, leader Leclerc pulled the pin and stretched the gap to almost two seconds at the start of lap nine, as he set the new fastest lap of the race.
Martins started to close in on Hauger and Caldwell with Doohan tagging in behind the Frenchman, letting the MP Motorsport driver do all the hard work.
At the halfway point of the race, Leclerc had a gap of 2.3 seconds ahead of Hauger who was half a second ahead of Caldwell.
On lap 11, the yellow flags were waved in sector two momentarily as Ido Cohen and Rafael Villagomez tangled at turn nine, fortunately, both drivers were able to re-join the action safely and continue. Cohen was later handed a 10-second penalty for causing a collision.
Two laps later, Leclerc set another fastest lap as he continued to pull away from Championship leader Hauger behind, but the Norweigan snatched the two bonus points straight back on lap 14.
On lap 17, Ayumu Iwasa, Calan Williams and Aleksandr Smolyar battled for seventh place, a battle which the Russian came out on top of as the other two drivers fiercely battled for eighth for the remainder of the race.
At turn one on lap 19, Iwasa gave Williams the squeeze treatment but the Australian managed to get past the Japanese driver.
With a lap and a half to go, third place Olli Caldwell came under pressure from Martins, as the Frenchman fantastically dived onto the podium at turn 12 and setting the fastest lap of the race in the process.
In the end, it was Arthur Leclerc who took the glory for the first time in his F3 career. He finished four seconds ahead of Hauger in second as the duo secured a Prema one-two with home-hero Martins coming home in third.
Rounding out the top ten was Caldwell, Doohan, Novalak, Smolyar, Williams, Iwasa and Frederik Vesti who came home in 10th.
After the race in Parc-Ferme, Arthur Leclerc celebrated his first taste of F3 glory with his older brother and Ferrari F1 driver, Charles Leclerc.
Quotes from the drivers
When Arthur Leclerc was quizzed on his difference in strategy between race one and two, the Monegasque explained to Prost International’s Harvey Todd how his mentality changed between the two races:
“Race one starting P30, it’s quite far from first when you park on the grid, you can’t see the first car it’s that far. I just kept my mind really calm and come back to P12, I took every opportunity that I get and that’s it, my job is to do the best job possible and to take all the opportunities.
“I did exactly the same in race two, just focus on the car and focus on the consistency by improving corner by corner, lap by lap and the result will come!”
His fellow podium finishers, Hauger and Martins discussed how the conditions compared between the morning’s race one and the afternoon’s race two:
Victor Martins:
“I think the conditions changed a bit. With the qualifying of F1 we could see a lot of marbles on the outside of the track and when you went a bit off-line you could see you were getting some rubber on your tyres.
“It was a bit warmer, I thought it was going to be a bit trickier than this morning, but I think we got actually more grip from the track from the F1.”
Dennis Hauger:
“Yeah, I think overall the lap times were a bit quicker in race two compared to race one. Also, for me I felt a bit more comfortable in race two by having a better rhythm in my driving… but I think the main difference was the F1 qualifying that made more grip overall, but nothing crazy.”
What’s Next?
F3 are back in action for one last time this weekend for the Feature Race. Dennis Hauger will hope to extend his Championship lead as he lines up alongside Frederik Vesti on the front row of the grid.
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