Marciello scores another lights-to-flag victory at Nurburgring

Photo: FIA Formula 3 European Championship / Thomas Suer

Championship leader Raffaele Marciello continued to utterly dominate the European F3 round at Nurburgring, converting another pole position start into a victory in the second race of the weekend.

Marciello shared the front row of the grid with his main rival in the standings – Mucke’s Felix Rosenqvist, but, whilst the Prema junior got away from the grid nicely, his Swedish rival was a lot less fortunate, briefly stalling the car and tumbling all the way down the order.

With the main threat out of contention, it was smooth sailing for Marciello from that point on, as the Italian immediately started building up the gap to Fortec’s Pipo Derani, as the Brazilian found himself preoccupied with defending P2 from Alexander Sims.

On lap 14, Marciello’s massive advantage was evaporated due to a safety car period, caused by Roy Nissany spinning off-track and attempting to rejoin in an unsafe manner, which ended with him being collected by an unlucky Lucas Wolf.

However, the subsequent restart and sprint to the finish did not prove too challenging for the Ferrari junior, who wrapped up his ninth victory of the season.

Derani held Sims back to take second place, achieving his first podium in the series. Jordan King and Lucas Auer repeated their results from race one, finishing fourth and fifth respectively.

Sven Muller, who was narrowly keeping Alex Lynn behind prior to the restart, managed to gain a position after the safety car came in, as the German robbed Felix Serralles of sixth place with an elegant pass round the outside. The Briton soon followed through, but Muller kept sixth at the flag, with Serralles closing out the top eight.

A masterful recovery drive from Rosenqvist saw him break into the top ten in the closing stages of the race. He finished in ninth after clawing the spot away from Harry Tincknell, with the Carlin driver rounding out the points.

Race results