F3 – RND 8 Day 2 & 3

Day 2-

Pole sitter Beganovic covered off Bedrin on the run to Turn 1 but the AIX driver was undeterred and rounded the Swede at Turn 2 to take the lead away.
Inthraphuvasak followed in third position ahead of Callum Voisin and Christian Mansell.

The ART Grand Prix driver was under attack though on lap 2 from Tim Tramnitz and his MP Motorsport rival repeated the move of Bedrin into Turn 3 to take P5 from the Australian.

The Virtual Safety Car was then deployed to neutralise the race in order to recover Matias Zagazeta’s car after contact on the opening lap left him on the sidelines.

Back to racing conditions and the top four were covered by less than a second in the lead battle. As the quartet fought, Tramnitz and Mansell joined the train after the opening exchanges, getting to within DRS range by Lap 6.

Onto lap 10 and Beganovic made a late move on Bedrin into Turn 2 but caught the grass on the inside of the corner in the process. It sent his PREMA car sideways and while he was able to catch the slide, it dropped him down to third.

Into the Turn 6 and 7 chicane, Tramnitz squeezed his way alongside Voisin, who skipped across the chicane to keep hold of fourth.
The Rodin Motorsport driver was told to concede the place to Tramnitz, seeing off any potential review. One lap later, and Mansell was through on the Brit at Turn 1 for fifth.

Out in front though, Bedrin was in full control after resisting the pressure of Beganovic and crossed the line to earn his first FIA F3 victory, leading home an AIX Racing 1-2 ahead of Inthraphuvasak, a result that means all teams have now stood on the podium in 2024.

The full top 10 are- P1: Bedrin, P2: Inthraphuvasak, P3: Beganovic, P4: Tramnitz, P5: Mansell, P6: Voisin, P7: Fornaroli, P8: Browning, P9: Van Hoepen and P10: Meguetounif.

Day 3-

Van Hoepen got wheelspin in the second phase of the start and had to defend hard from his teammate Tsolov off the line.
The Dutch driver ran deep at Turn 1, allowing the Bulgarian through along with VAR’s Noel Leon.

With DRS enabled, Van Hoepen began to close in on Tsolov and was within half a second on lap 3, while Leon dropped to beyond a second back from the ART duo.

Christian Mansell moved his ART up to fifth with a late dive to the inside of Santiago Ramos at Turn 1 on lap 4.

As the opening laps ticked by, Van Hoepen radioed into his team to relay his tyres were beginning to overheat in the wake of teammate Tsolov.

By the midway point of the race, the top six were covered by four seconds with Santiago Ramos some 9.6s clear of Rodin Motorsport’s Callum Voisin who was running in P7.

In the fight for the final points places, Oliver Goethe pulled off a late dive to pass Dino Beganovic and secure himself ninth position, while behind Gabriele Mini cleared Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak to move up into 11th.

Into the final three laps and after a phase of tyre management, van Hoepen began to apply the pressure on Tsolov once again in the lead fight.

Boya’s battle with Mini resumed and the Spaniard found a gap at Turn 2 to take 11th position.
Contact between Arvid Lindblad and Matias Zagazeta resulted in a late-race Safety Car on Lap 21, with the PREMA driver stopped at Turn 4.

With little time to clear both cars, it was not possible to resumed racing in time for a final lap shootout. Tsolov took his third race win of 2024 and his first F3 Feature Race victory.

The full top 10 are- P1: Tsolov, P2: Van Hoepen, P3: Leon, P4: Fornaroli, P5: Mansell, P6: Ramos, P7: Voisin, P8: Bedrin, P9: Goethe and P10: Beganovic.

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