Théophile Naël was finally able to convert his third consecutive Formula 3 pole position to a win in Sunday’s feature race in Barcelona, finishing ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi and Campos Racing teammate Ugo Ugochukwu. 

By Tori Turner

Naël initially maintained position from pole with a strong launch, whilst Ugochukwu had a sluggish start and lost a position to Yamakoshi. The Japanese driver shaped to attack Naël around the outside of Turn 1, but he was unable to make the move stick and took to the escape road. 

Despite starting fifth on the grid, Taito Kato tumbled down the order after wobbling on the start and lost five positions. Bruno Del Pino alongside him got an excellent start to move up to fourth, even drawing alongside Ugochukwu briefly into Turn 1.

On lap two, Freddie Slater, who started 10th, passed Enzo Deligny around the outside of Turn 1 to move up into seventh. One lap later, a brief virtual safety car neutralised racing to allow debris from an incident involving Yevan David and Michael Shin to be recovered. Shin was handed a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision.

On lap seven, DAMS teammates Nicola Lacorte and Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi made contact. Lacorte lunged down the inside of Bhirombhakdi and clipped his left side, causing the Thai driver to spin across the track whilst Lacorte parked up on the grass. Another brief virtual safety car was triggered as marshals recovered the cars, but racing resumed on lap nine.

That lap, Slater was handed a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage on the opening lap, when he took to the escape road at the opening corner complex and passed Kato. He was undeterred, however, and passed Brando Badoer for fifth on lap 10 shortly after receiving the penalty.  

There was a third virtual safety car deployment on lap 12 to remove debris at Turn 1. Upon the restart, Yamakoshi closed to within half a second of Naël as Del Pino did the same on Ugochukwu. Then the American went wide at the final corner on lap 15, opening the door for Del Pino to snatch the final podium place. With the penalty hanging over him, Slater also cut the gap to Ugochukwu to within a second but never got close enough to make a move. 

Del Pino began to struggle with his tyres, however, and Ugochukwu closed back up to him by lap 18. On lap 20, he retook third from the Spaniard around the outside of Turn 1.

Slater, struggling behind them in fifth, made a mistake like Ugochukwu’s earlier in the race and ran wide at the final corner, ceding a position to Badoer on the start-finish straight. Slater lost another position to Deligny on lap 22 to fall to seventh, reversing the progress he had made throughout the opening stages of the race.

On lap 23, Kato passed sprint race winner James Wharton for 10th around the outside of Turn 1 before moving himself up to ninth on the next lap when he passed Tuukka Taponen before Turn 1. On the same lap, Badoer used the DRS to snatch fourth from Van Amersfoort’s Del Pino.

All the while, Naël had built up his own gap to Yamakoshi and put him outside of DRS range by lap 17. The Japanese driver never fell more than two seconds behind but also never got within a second until Naël took the chequered flag. In the end, the winning margin may have been only 0.740s, but Naël looked supremely in control en route to a lights-to-flag maiden F3 win at the Spanish circuit, avenging defeats from pole in the first two feature races of the season. 

Yamakoshi’s second-place finish still gave him his first official podium after he was disqualified from the sprint race win in Monaco. He also took the fastest lap of the race, 1:32.408, on lap five. Ugochukwu finished third despite his mistakes earlier on in the race, making it a double podium for the Spanish outfit at their home track in addition to their fourth win in Barcelona in five years.

Badoer finished 2.147s shy of the podium in fourth, whilst Deligny made up three positions from eighth on the grid to end up fifth. Del Pino struggled during the closing laps of the race despite running in the podium positions earlier on and could only manage sixth, losing out to his teammate on the final lap. Slater crossed the line seventh but lost a position to Ernesto Rivera when his penalty was applied after the race.

Kato finished down in ninth after starting fifth, while ART Grand Prix teammate Maciej Gładysz made up seven positions during the race to take the final points-paying position.

With his podium finish, Ugochukwu remains first in the championship standings with 58 points, but he is now just six points ahead of teammate Naël in second. The Frenchman made the biggest gains in the standings with his win, moving up three positions from fifth to kickstart his championship campaign. Del Pino slipped to third with 48 points, four behind Naël, as Slater with 47 and Badoer with 41 round out the top five.   

In the teams’ standings, Campos have 126 points and have now broken 27 points clear of Van Amersfoort, who are a further 42 points ahead of Rodin Motorsport.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency