Marciello completes near-perfect weekend with race three win

Photo: FIA F3 Europe

Raffaele Marciello continued a streak of great performances in race three of the opening round of the F3 European Championship at Monza, winning the race from pole ahead of Pascal Wehrlein and Alex Lynn.

The race, just like race two, started off under the safety car as the rain that continued throughout the entire day of racing didn’t show any signs of weakening. Marciello managed to keep his lead when the safety car pitted in and he and Wehrlein started to pull far away from the rest of the pack.

Most of the action in the race took place in the midfield as this was another incident-filled outing. A rash move from Sven Muller ended the race for Mucke’s Roy Nissany on lap five while Dennis van de Laar lost the car due to sustained damage on lap seven. Muller continued to struggle under braking, ramming into the back of Nicholas Latifi and ending his race, while a mistake saw Lucas Wolf travel through the gravel into the wall. Finally, on lap eight Andre Rudersdorf and Mitchell Gilbert ended up stuck in the gravel and, a lap later, the race was red-flagged due to difficult weather conditions, not to be restarted.

As such, Marciello took half-points for a second win of the weekend. In his probably final F3 race ahead of the DTM switch, Wehrlein was second, while Prema’s Alex Lynn scored his maiden podium in third.

Lucas Auer continued his strong form to finish fourth, ahead of Pipo Derani and the very consistent Harry Tincknell. Will Buller finished in seventh, while Eddie Cheever, Jr. made it another race with all drivers in the points for Prema, finishing ahead of Jordan King and Tom Blomqvist.

As such, Marciello leads the championship confidently after round one, with 55.5 points. Wehrlein is in second with 49 but since he’s not in title contention, the Italian’s closest rivals are teammate Auer and Carlin’s Tincknell, both at 24 points.

Race results

Championship standings