Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Xcel Motorsport’s Patrick Heuzenroeder claimed the GB3 points lead with a lights-to-flag victory in the first race of the weekend at Zandvoort.
A congested pitlane resulted in the original start being aborted. A five-minute delay followed, and the race’s duration was slightly reduced to 23 minutes.
Having lined up from pole, Heuzenroeder moved across to cover off fellow front-row starter Deagen Fairclough when the contest finally got underway, and he soon pulled out a 1.3-second lead over the Hitech GP driver.
Despite his advantage being slightly reduced by 0.3s at the halfway stage, Heuzenroeder romped clear in the race’s second half to win by 6.6s.
Fairclough faded late on and was forced to defend from Rodin Motorsport’s Gianmarco Pradel on the last lap to come home second. Pradel kept his team-mate Alex Ninovic behind throughout for his second podium finish of the season.
Argenti Motorsport with Prema’s Reza Seewooruthun was close behind in fifth, and just ahead of his team-mate and Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Yuanpu Cui.
JHR Developments’ Noah Lisle finished seventh and slipped to third in the standings, once place behind Hillspeed’s pre-event leader Freddie Slater who is racing in Formula Regional Europe at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend.
Hitech’s Alpine junior Keanu Al Alzhari battled Lisle on the opening lap and eventually finished eighth, while JHR’s Kai Daryanani lost out to the pair at the start before following them home in ninth.
Elite Motorsport’s Will Macintyre gained two spots to 10th, while behind him there was a mid-race tangle between Velocity Racing Development’s Hugo Schwarze and Hitech’s Nikita Johnson. Schwarze came home 11th and Johnson was the final finisher in 19th.
Having had his lap times deleted for causing a red flag in qualifying, Xcel’s Jack Sherwood recovered from the back of the grid to 12th. He was subsequently demoted to 15th behind Fortec Motorsports’ Stefan Bostandjiev due to early contract between the pair.
Race results (15 laps)
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Patrick Heuzenroeder | Xcel Motorsport | |
| 2 | Deagen Fairclough | Hitech GP | +6.573s |
| 3 | Gianmarco Pradel | Rodin Motorsport | +6.836s |
| 4 | Alex Ninovic | Rodin Motorsport | +7.315s |
| 5 | Reza Seewooruthun | Argenti w/ Prema | +7.676s |
| 6 | Yuanpu Cui | Argenti w/ Prema | +8.282s |
| 7 | Noah Lisle | JHR Developments | +9.045s |
| 8 | Keanu Al Azhari | Hitech GP | +9.729s |
| 9 | Kai Daryanani | JHR Developments | +10.608s |
| 10 | Will Macintyre | Elite Motorsport | +11.449s |
| 11 | Hugo Schwarze | Velocity Racing Development | +15.661s |
| 12 | Jack Sherwood | Xcel Motorsport | +16.096s |
| 13 | Lucas Fluxa | Argenti w/ Prema | +21.375s |
| 14 | Abbi Pulling | Rodin Motorsport | +26.993s |
| 15 | Stefan Bostandjiev | Fortec Motorsports | +29.049s |
| 16 | Flynn Jackes | Elite Motorsport | +29.343s |
| 17 | Bianca Bustamante | Elite Motorsport | +33.607s |
| 18 | Divy Nandan | JHR Developments | +37.005s |
| 19 | Nikita Johnson | Hitech GP | +1m28.010s |
| Fastest lap: Heuzenroeder, 1m31.824s
Championship standings |
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