Runaway championship leader Dennis Hauger looks to put one hand on the F3 Championship title with three rounds to go

The summer break has concluded and Formula 3 are straight back into the action with round five at Belgian’s Spa-Francorchamps Circuit.

Dennis Hauger has been ever consistent throughout this season’s F3 Championship and has a 63-point gap ahead of second-place Jack Doohan.

The Norweigan driver has only failed to score points in one race and has the season of his life as the title looks to be nearly sealed.

In the last round at the Hungaroring, the Formula 3 grid experienced many challenges with the overtaking near impossible and the weather playing a huge factor throughout the weekend.

Arthur Leclerc, the younger brother of F1 driver Charles Leclerc, claimed his first-ever F3 pole position, but it was Jonny Edgar that started from pole for race one.

The Brit looked on course to control the race, however, he encountered a problem that saw Lorenzo Colombo take the lead of the race and the victory.

Colombo was given a penalty after his Safety Car infringement which handed Ayumu Iwasa his first-ever win in Formula 3.

Race two saw Enzo Fittipaldi take pole position, but the ever aggressive Matteo Nannini stormed his way up to first from third to take maximum points from the second race of the weekend.

Sunday finally rolled around for Leclerc as he lined up first ahead of his Prema teammate and championship leader Hauger.

The two Prema drivers battled, but in the end, it was the Norweigan that took the win ahead of his Monegasque teammate.

That victory propelled Hauger even further in front as Jack Doohan leapt into second in the Championship after a third-place finish in race three.

This weekend’s racing will be held at Spa-Francorchamps, the longest track on the calendar. The circuit is located in Stavelot, Belgium and is over seven kilometres long.

Formula 3 first raced at the track in its inaugural season back in 2019. Jehan Daruvala stuck his Prema on pole position with Pedro Piquet in second and Yuki Tsunoda in third.

However, the Indian failed to convert his pole into a race win as Piquet stormed to take the victory and the fastest lap. Daruvala slipped down to third with his Prema teammate, Robert Shwartzman, moving up to second from fourth on the grid.

Marcus Armstrong lined up on reverse grid pole position, and unlike Daruvala the day before, took a lights to flag victory by a comfortable margin. Tsunoda and Shwartzman finished second and third over four and five seconds respectively behind the New Zealander.

Last year’s Belgian Grand Prix saw Trident and Prema Racing the two dominant teams. Lirim Zendeli stormed to pole position and took the win in race one ahead of Theo Pourchaire and teammate David Beckmann.

Richard Verschoor went onto claim reverse grid pole but he failed to capitalise on the good grid position as Logan Sargeant went onto win the race. The American finished ahead of teammate Frederik Vesti and Hitech Grand Prix’s Liam Lawson.

Hauger will know that he is one step away from becoming the F3 Champion, but his consistency must continue if he is to wrap things up.

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