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Jack Doohan withstood the pressure from his teammate Clement Novalak and ART’s Frederik Vesti to win the final race of the 2021 Formula 3 season and in doing so secures the constructors’ title for Trident.
The Aussie battled with his teammate for the race victory but was able to hold on for the win as he looks to move up to Formula 2 for next season.
Starting Grid
On pole position for the season finale was Jack Doohan, whose time on Friday earned him the chance to start race three with a clear view into turn one as he started ahead of his Trident teammate Clement Novalak.
On row two, an F3 best qualifying finish for Johnathan Hoggard saw the Jenzer Motorsport driver start from third ahead of ART’s Frederik Vesti in fourth.
Vesti’s teammate Juan Manuel Correa fronted row three ahead of Campos’ Lorenzo Colombo who started sixth.
The winner of the first race of the season, Aleksandr Smolyar started seventh. The Russian was joined on row four by MP Motorsport’s Ciao Collet. Dennis Hauger and Jak Crawford started from ninth and 10th as they rounded out the top 10.
As It Happened
The lights went out and pole man Doohan got the best launch, however, he and Novalak ran side by side into the first braking zone at turn two. The pair ran wheel to wheel around the sweeping turn three before the Australian got back into the lead on the brakes at turn four.
At the end of the first lap, it was a Trident one-two as Doohan led ahead of Novalak and Hoggard in third. Correa and Vesti too were in the hunt as they ran fourth and fifth respectively, narrowly behind the top three.
It didn’t take long for the Dane to get past his ART teammate as he made a tidy move up the inside of Correa into fourth at turn six.
The American was fighting to keep his position again as he battled Hauger through turns 13 and 14 before Logan Sargeant, who started 11th, snuck into sixth ahead of the Prema man at turn 15. Correa was soon caught by his compatriot and overtaken at turn two on lap three with Sargeant moving up to fifth.
Meters later, Hauger tried to sneak through on Correa but he held his position and stayed sixth. Crawford was also in this tussle as the Hitech driver leapfrogged the Norwegian into seventh around the outside at turn three.
On lap five, Hauger fell down another position, this time at the hands of Victor Martins. The Frenchman replicated Crawford’s move a lap earlier as Hauger fell to ninth. The champion had a look at Martins into turn five however backed out of the move.
Crawford was on the move again as he promoted himself to sixth ahead of Correa at turn 13 on lap six.
A lap later, leaders Doohan and Novalak started to pull away. Meanwhile, at turn six, after Martins ran deep into turn seven, several drivers jostled for sixth place including Oliver Rasmussen and Hauger. The HWA Racelab driver locked up and clipped the right rear of Hauger, sending the Prema driver into a spin which saw him fall to 27th.
The Dane was later given a 10-second time penalty by the race directors for causing a collision.
The tangle gave Arthur Leclerc the chance to get into the points. On lap eight, the Monegasque placed his Prema up the inside of Correa at turn two and got himself into seventh place after starting from 14th.
Exactly a lap later, Novalak tried to go around the outside of Doohan at turn two. However, he ran wide and gave the place back to his teammate.
At the end of lap 10, Hauger pitted for fresh hard compound tyres in an attempt to steal the fastest lap points from Trident’s Novalak as Prema continued their bid to become constructors’ champions.
Third-placed Vesti set a string of impressive laps and in doing so caught up with Novalak. The Dane got closer on lap 16, however, a mistake at turn five saw him drop back by two seconds.
Back in the lead, Novalak got up the inside of Doohan at turn two on lap 17. The Aussie, who continued to defy team orders, executed the switchback and slotted up the inside of Novalak around turn three. The Trident duo battling allowed Vesti to get back into the leading group.
A lap later, Vesti made a move on Novalak into second with the assistance of DRS around turn 12.
Doohan took this opportunity to pull the pin over the final two laps as he came home to win the final race of the 2021 F3 season, ahead of Vesti and Novalak in third.
Rounding out the top 10 finishers were Sargeant, Crawford, Hoggard, Leclerc, Martins, Ayumu Iwasa and Olli Caldwell.
This brings an end to the thrilling 2021 F3 season, some drivers will look to progress to F2 next season and others will stay in F3 to fight it out for the 2022 title.
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