Kirchhofer dominates German F3 field

Photo: formel3.de

Marvin Kirchhofer drover an impeccable race in wet conditions during the first outing of the season at Oschersleben, taking a stunning lights-to-flag victory and bagging the fastest lap of the race.

After 18 laps, Kirchhofer finished more than 20 seconds ahead of teammate Artem Markelov, while Gustavo Menezes rounded out the podium.

Yannick Mettler ended up being the highest-placed Performance Racing driver, finishing fourth ahead of Tomasz Krzeminski. John Bryant-Meisner marked his return to the category with sixth, ahead of single-seater rookie Matteo Cairoli. Having originally finished in eighth to take the reverse-grid pole for race two, Nabil Jeffri had it denied due to speeding under yellow flags that earned him a hefty 30-second penalty post-race. The same fate awaited Freddy Killensberger, who originally topped the Trophy category, but gave it up to his teammate Sebastian Balthasar, who inherited pole for race two.

The race was packed with incidents that involved key figures like Emil Bernstorff, Aston Hare and Thomas Jager. After colliding with Bernstorff into turn two on lap one, Hare retired from the race while the Brit drove a good recovery drive from a lap down.

Race results

* denotes post-race penalties