Van Amersfoot Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi secured his first Formula 3 win during an incident-heavy Monaco sprint race, finishing ahead of DAMS’ Gerrard Xie and VAR teammate Bruno Del Pino. Feeder Series spoke to the Japanese driver after the race about how he managed the race.

By Tori Turner

Heading down to Sainte Dévote, reverse-grid pole sitter Yamakoshi remained in first place with no changes within the top five. Clerot took to the escape road, as did a number of drivers behind him, but did not lose a position as he returned to the track in third. 

The first lap remained incident-free until they reached the Fairmont hairpin, where Tuukka Taponen, who started seventh, ambitiously lunged down the inside of Ernesto Rivera. The pair touched at slow speed, stopping both of them and causing a knock-on effect on the drivers behind. The drivers slowed, almost as if in a traffic jam, to avoid Taponen and Rivera.

As a result, four drivers retired from the race. The instigator, Taponen, eventually came to a halt inside the tunnel after sustaining damage to his front wing during the collision, whilst Brando Badoer stopped by the barriers at Portier while attempting to take avoiding action. In the same incident, Brad Benavides clipped Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi’s rear wheel, launching him into the barriers before Christian Ho smashed into the back of his car. James Wharton headed into the pit lane for a front wing change, with Taito Kato also coming in. 

The safety car was initially deployed to facilitate the cars’ removal from the track, but with the safety difficulties of extracting Taponen’s car from the tunnel, race control decided a red flag would be needed. This allowed Campos to change Rivera’s front wing after he picked up damage from the earlier contact.

After a red flag in excess of 30 minutes, racing resumed with a rolling start under a time limit, as race control confirmed that there were just under 23 minutes left in which the race could be completed. Clerot was ordered by his engineer to let Del Pino through into third place after his opening-lap corner cut. Meanwhile, Jin Nakamura attempted to make a move on Théophile Naël for 10th at the hairpin but could not pass him.

On lap six, three laps after the initial restart, another safety car was called after Freddie Slater attempted to dive down the inside of Rivera at the hairpin. The Briton clipped Rivera’s left-hand side, causing the Mexican to spin. As Slater slowed to avoid further contact,  Naël rear-ended him, threatening another extensive clean-up operation with the trio stranded on the exit of the hairpin. All three drivers were eventually able to continue, though they had been overtaken by the field and had no hope of gaining any points from the race. Slater later received a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision.  

The incident promoted Nakamura, Maciej Gładysz and Kanato Le to the top 10. After the initial restart on lap eight, there was a brief virtual safety car period due to further debris on the track from Slater’s front wing. 

There was no change within the top 10 for the remaining six laps, with Yamakoshi thus taking his maiden victory. He is the third Japanese driver to win in the modern era of FIA F3, with his win marking a return of the national flag to the top step of the series’ podium, 1771 days after Ayumu Iwasa’s victory in the 2021 Budapest sprint race. 

“I knew that Monaco is really difficult to overtake,” Yamakoshi told Feeder Series in the post-race media session. “I knew the tyre pressure was a bit higher than last year. We didn’t make any risk because we’re in Monaco and … everything so we don’t really know what’s going on in the race and how the degradation goes. I just managed as much as I can, with the last two rounds ending up with shorter races.

“I also had a few safety car cars, so it’s a bit easier than what I expected to think about management-wise. I basically saw the gap and tried to find where I lost the time and where I can actually gain the time, so that’s basically what I did. I’m not going to hit the wall every lap. That’s the main point, especially to stay on track.”

Xie finished second, claiming the first podium finish for a Chinese driver in this iteration of the championship. Yamakoshi’s Van Amersfoort teammate Del Pino took the final podium position in third, securing a second consecutive sprint race double podium for the team after their 1-2 in Melbourne.

Clerot finished fourth, with Alessandro Giusti fifth and Noah Strømsted sixth. Ugo Ugochukwu made up two positions from ninth on the grid to finish seventh, while Nakamura, who started 15th, finished eighth. Gładysz and Le rounded out the final points-paying positions.

Full points were awarded to the top 10 drivers per the FIA sporting regulations as 18 of 23 laps were completed, just above 75 per cent of the original race distance. 

Additional reporting by Cliona Sheerin

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency