Nikola Tsolov, ART Grand Prix
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Nikola Tsolov has secured his second win of the Formula 3 campaign in the Austrian sprint race, holding off Martinius Stenshorne and Christian Mansell in a final-lap restart after a late safety car.
Starting from pole, Stenshorne immediately surrendered the lead of the 21-lap race to Mansell after making a tardy launch. Having attempted to regain the position on the run to Turn 4, things then got worse as a second ART of Tsolov ran around the outside at that corner and relegated the Norwegian to third.
Before the opening lap reached its conclusion, the safety car was called into action as the marshals took to the track to recover Kacper Sztuka’s MP Motorsport entry after damage caused in a collision involving Charlie Wurz (Jenzer) and Joseph Loake (Rodin) forced him to retire.
The interruption also gave championship contender Dino Beganovic a chance to reset at the rear of the pack following a Turn 1 spin which had dropped the Prema driver from eighth.
From the restart, the field remained largely in a single DRS train as Mansell and Tsolov duelled for the lead with pass and counter-pass moves largely at turns three and four, both drivers taking full advantage of the three DRS zones at the Red Bull Ring.
But it was Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident) who performed the move of the race, skimming the gravel on the exit of Turn 5 to take Nikita Bedrin (AIX) for 15th on lap 11.
Just as Mansell dropped behind Stenshorne to the final step on the podium, the race was interrupted by the safety car for the second time after Sebastian Montoya made heavy contact with the wall before his Campos entry came to a halt in the middle of the track.
The incident was triggered when he ran wheel-to-wheel with Alex Dunne approaching Turn 4, with Montoya taking to the grass to continue the battle before losing traction and spinning across the front of the MP Motorsport car.
With only a one-lap shootout to negotiate, Tsolov controlled the restart and led the pack across the line with the top places remaining unchanged; although Mansell questioned the moves of the top two, suggesting they had been completed under yellow flag or safety car conditions. No investigation was launched prior to the podium celebrations.
In the championship battle, Gabriele Mini closed the gap to Fornaroli and Luke Browning, with four points now covering the lead trio after neither of the top two troubled the scoreboard in 12th and 11th respectively.
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0.6
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4 laps
5 laps
Source: Autosport