The 2021 F3 Championship enters its closing stages as Zandvoort plays host to the penultimate round of the season

Embed from Getty Images

Jack Doohan versus Dennis Hauger will be on the lips of every fan as the duo look to battle it with only two rounds of the Formula 3 season to go.

The Trident driver claimed two wins during last weekend’s round at Spa-Francorchamps to decrease Hauger’s lead at the top to 25 points.

During free practice, Clement Novalak was quickest but the rain played a huge part in qualifying and in all the races with Doohan claiming pole position for race three.

Lorenzo Colombo started from pole for the first race of the weekend after he finished qualifying in 12th place. With the wet weather continuing, the Campos Racing driver went onto record a comfortable victory as he crossed the line over 10 seconds ahead of second-place Jak Crawford, who became the youngest ever F3 podium finisher, and Roman Stanek in third.

Doohan didn’t make up any position and finished race one in 12th meaning a reverse grid pole position for race two. Similarly to Colombo, the Australian led from start to finish to claim his second victory of the season ahead of his Trident teammate, David Schumacher in second and Logan Sargeant in third.

Race three was more of the same but the top two, Doohan and Victor Martins, battled for the race lead. The former came out on top with the latter giving back the top spot to the Aussie after he’d overtake him off track.

A second victory for the Trident man, the first F3 driver to secure two wins during a race weekend, saw him close the gap on runaway championship leader Hauger who has had a flawless season so far.

However, last weekend the Norweigan was unable to score points during the first race and only scored six points out of the following two races compared to Doohan’s 44.

This time around, Hauger has a chance to return to the podium or even record another race win, but he must bring his A-game as the ever-confident Doohan will certainly be pushing the Prema driver all weekend long.

Zandvoort is a new track that has never featured on the Formula 3 calendar but the old layout made an appearance back in 2017 for the FIA F3 European Championship. Located in the Netherlands, the track is 4.259km in length and it consists of 14 corners in total.

Dutch driver Tijmen van der Helm and his team MP Motorsport, after a positive Belgian Grand Prix, will be hoping to secure a win at their home race after narrowly missing out on the top step in race three last time out.

A few drivers have raced at the Dutch track either in Formula 4 or as part of the Formula Renault Eurocup Championship with Dennis Hauger and Victor Martins setting lap records pre and post-renovation.

It will be a new challenge for most of the F3 grid but one that they will take head-on as Doohan and Hauger go toe-to-toe once more with two rounds of the championship to go.

Follow us on Twitter @ProstInt