Franco Colapinto won a stop-start Formula 3 sprint race which finished under a fourth Safety Car period in Melbourne.
The Williams junior started in sixth, but took control of the race after a brilliant pass on Sebastián Montoya through the turns nine and ten complex in the early stages.
He subsequently survived two safety car restarts for his first victory of the season and was joined on the podium by Zak O’Sullivan, also a Williams junior, and Montoya in an incident-packed sprint race.
After Gabriel Bortoleto was fastest in a red-flag affected qualifying, Sebastián Montoya lined up in pole on a partially-reversed grid for F3’s first ever Melbourne outing.
The Hitech driver made an excellent start and the wheel-to-wheel battling behind him allowed Montoya to build a sizeable lead. However, the drivers failed to make it beyond sector two before the Safety Car was deployed on lap one.
Approaching turn three, Luke Browning hit the back of Oliver Goethe during his attempt to take second place, causing a rear-right puncture on the Trident car. Now unable to turn, Goethe went skidded off and became stuck in the gravel.
On the lap three restart, Montoya kept the lead but behind him was a fast Browning who didn’t take long to challenge his team mate for first. However, his attempt to take the lead on lap five ended badly.
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Browning took a look down the inside of the high-speed turn nine but found little room and bounced over the kerb. His poor exit caused him to drop to fifth. Moments later Caio Collet, who had been running in the other podium position, fell to the back after Paul Aron inflicted a puncture on his car while trying to pass around the outside of turn 13.
That promoted Colapinto and O’Sullivan into second and third respectively. But where Browning had failed, the MP Motorsport driver succeeded after Colapinto’s move down the inside of turn nine gave him the lead on lap six.
Yet before the lap’s end, a second safety car period was called after a mistake by Ido Cohen. While running outside of the points, the Rodin Carlin driver hit the wall and slid into the gravel at the outside of turn 11.
Colapinto kept the lead once conditions went green again on lap 11, but the race was brought to another halt before it really got going. On lap 12, home crowd favourite Tommy Smith hit the wall at the final corner heavily damaging the back of his car, and he came to a stop in the gravel at turn one. A third…
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