Beganovic fires up F3 title challenge with Melbourne feature race win

Photo: Prema

Dino Beganovic ignited his FIA Formula 3 title hopes with a first victory in a tactical feature race in Melbourne.

Polesitter Leonardo Fornaroli covered off Gabriele Mini at the start to retain the lead with Beganovic following in third. Trident’s Fornaroli led by 1.3 seconds at the end of lap one, but his advantage was neutralised by a safety car after Tommy Smith and Joseph Loake came together and found the gravel at turn 11.

After the restart on lap six of 23, Fornaroli had a 0.9s margin over Mini and finally managed to break the DRS tow on lap 10. That put Mini into the clutches of his Prema team-mate Beganovic, who was able to get past quite easily before turn 9 on lap 12. Just a lap later, Luke Browning could make a similar move around the outside of Mini to take third.

Beganovic meanwhile caught quickly up with Fornaroli and could make a pass for the lead on the inside towards turn 9 on lap 14.

With all the drivers appearing to suffer with tyre graining to one degree or another, Beganovic couldn’t pull away at first with Fornaroli staying on his tail, and with five laps to go the top four were all within DRS range of each other.

Ferrari junior Beganovic finally broke away from Fornaroli on the penultimate tour to take the win by 1.6 seconds, having not previously finished in the points places in any of the previous three races.

Having caught Fornaroli, Browning soon dropped out of DRS range again and Mini could repass him for third on the run to turn 9 on the penultimate lap.

Browning and Fornaroli are therefore now tied on points at the top of the championship with Mini five further back and Beganovic up to fourth, just nine from the lead.

Rookie Charlie Wurz produced an impressive charge for Jenzer Motorsport to go from 14th to fifth. He followed Sebastian Montoya – who started 15th – up the order, with both following Mari Boya past a struggling Nikita Bedrin in the space of a few corners with eight laps to go.

Montoya and Wurz then passed Boya in successive turns on the next lap before Wurz made quick work of Montoya.

Bedrin held on to finish eighth ahead of Oliver Goethe – who went off the road trying to pass the PHM Racing driver in the first half of the race – and Christian Mansell.

Arvid Lindblad followed Browning past Bedrin for fifth around the outside of turn 4 on the lap six restart but faded to 11th.

Race results (23 laps)