Qualifying...
For the second session of the day on the coast of what is actually Holland as well as the Netherlands, there was a slight delay of ten minutes, pushing the session back by ten minutes. A qualifying session will last thirty minutes and in that time, the drivers do not just decide the starting order for the first sprint race on Saturday morning but Sunday as well. This is due to the current format of the Formula Three weekend. For the sprint race, the top 12 will be reversed, meaning the driver finishing in twelfth will take pole position for the first sprint race. The driver to get the fastest lap in qualifying will get the four points for pole on Sunday.
When qualifying did get the green light, it took a whole few seconds for just about every car to get on track. This made for some interesting battles on track for track position. With thirty cars on a very short track - the second shortest on the F3 calendar - finding an open space to set a fast lap cost some effort.
The general view of the session wasn’t very special, though most of the time, there were plenty of cars on track with drivers going for a sequence of a fast lap, followed by a cool-down lap and then yet another fast lap. We did however get to see some gravel flying as cars took detours over the gravel traps. After a lot of red flags that day already, it remained relatively quiet until the final four minutes when a yellow flag in sector one appeared and was quickly changed into a red flag. Yeany had spun at turn two by losing the rear and managed to park the car in the banking of turn three, parking nose up. He did manage to get away himself but the red flag gave the marshalls some time to clean some of the gravel off the track.
The session resumed around five minutes later, giving all the drivers one last run at the fastest time, which was at the time in the hands of championship leader Dennis Hauger. However, the only driver able to get a go at the time, was Hauger himself, improving his time by 0.135 seconds, making his pole lap last just under one and a half minutes (1:24,580). Ralf Schumacher completed the front row for Sunday with his best ever qualifying. The front row for Saturday morning consisted of Cordeel on reverse pole with Sargeant beside him.
Villagómez was under investigation after failing to stop for the weighing bridge with the stewards looking more into it after qualifying.
Race One...
After receiving a penalty for failing to stop at the weighing bridge, the race turned badly before it had even started for Villagómez who was obliged to start from the pitlane after qualifying thirteenth, just one position away from what would be the reverse pole position for the first race of the weekend. He could have found his way into the top twelve, which would mean a good starting position for the race later that day, or even the points. With his penalty, the hard work from qualifying was diminished.
For the rest of the grid, sights were set ahead as they were ready to start their first race at the newly changed circuit. Everything made it seem that it would be an exciting race with plenty of action. The layout of the track proved to be a challenging one as well as a hard one to overtake on.
As could have been predicted, the start turned out to be a bit chaotic. It took around half a lap before the first car spun around. It had been Cordeel, the driver starting from pole position, albeit being overtaken by both Leclerc and Sargeant into the first corner. The spin, caused after colliding with Smolyar, nearly took out one of the Trident cars as well but ended up harmless. Cordeel rejoined right at the back of the track.
Three laps later, Smolyar was forced to pit as he received a black and orange car for his front wing that was barely attached to his car. On top of that, he suffered a ten-second stop and go penalty for causing a collision.
The following laps consisted mostly of the same things: cars running off track after trying to risk an overtake on the dirty side of the track - which had proved to be littered with gravel on multiple occasions already - and Sargeant pushing to find a gap to take advantage of, or trying to force Leclerc into a mistake. Sargeant almost seemed to have pushed Leclerc over the limit as the Monegasque locked his front tires into turn one at the beginning of the seventh lap. Fans of the younger sibling of Ferrari drivers would have sighed in relief as he somehow still managed to steer into the corner and keep Sargeant behind. The mistake and the constant defending did help some other drivers catching up to the duo that had etched away slightly, making the battle for the win into a fight between five drivers, rather than two.
The mistake from Leclerc hadn’t been the only one in the seventh lap. A squabble between Correa and Rasmussen had happened as well, as the latter tried to gain track position. Correa was forced off the track and lost two positions in the process of returning to the track.
As the DRS train in front increased to ten drivers rather than five (with a six-second gap to the driver behind), all still following the Prema belonging to Leclerc, the ongoing meme showed up in this race as well:
Another DRS board suffered a blow, causing a piece to end up on the track in sector two. A yellow flag followed for several laps as one of the marshals had to build up the courage of getting on track with racing cars flying around so fast it was hard to find a gap.
While the track was being cleared of the DRS board, battles continued to be fought into turn one, seemingly the only place to be able to overtake another driver on track. In lap 12, Caldwel took a risky move down the outside, locking up, yet still managing to take the place from Colombo. It wasn’t the final spectacular moment as one lap later, Hauger decided to risk going on the outside of turn one in pursuit of more points to add to his already large sum. He slid off the track and found himself side by side with Novalak into the banked turn three. Novalak however, carried more speed and moved up, causing Hauger to drop back to ninth after trying to take seventh position.
In front, it seemed like Leclerc had found himself a bit of breathing space with an eight-tenths lead over Sargeant but things had turned back to how they were at the beginning of the lap before the same lap had even ended. Leclerc however was given the time to stop and catch a breath shortly after as the safety car was brought on track for a crash involving Hoggard and Yeany. The two had crashed into each other, causing to break Hoggard’s front right suspension as it happened. He immediately drifted off track and into the wall, breaking his second front suspension as well. Yeany seemed to be able to continue before a flat tire caused him to lose control and saw him leaving the track as well, forced to retire from the race.
The safety car left the track at the end of lap 21, giving the drivers four more laps to complete. Leclerc had backed the long line of drivers up as much as he could before speeding away, trying his best to give Sargeant behind the smallest possible speed advantage from his slipstream. However, it wasn’t Leclerc nearly losing out on a position but rather Sargeant himself, barely holding on to his second place. That gave Leclerc the space he needed to stay away from Sargeant for the remainder of the race.
Hauger, the championship leader, managed to increase the points he was going to score from two to six in two laps, finally making it to the seventh position he had already been fighting for on lap 14. It was the final real action on track, with the only significant thing being another yellow flag in sector two for yet another piece of a DRS board on track, in the penultimate lap.
Leclerc finished the race out of DRS range from Sargeant who had Iwasa right on his back. Finishing the top twelve, to make up the front line for the starting grid later that day were Cohen in twelfth and Novalak in eleventh.
Race Two...
After a first race that lived up to the standard of the lower categories of formula racing with plenty of action, though it wasn’t much in the overtaking rather than going off track, the second race promised to be an exciting one yet again.
And so it was.
The top 12 of the first sprint race had been reversed for the starting grid of the second sprint race, meaning Leclerc - winner of the first sprint race - would start from twelfth and Cohen would start from pole position. It could become the first race for the Israelian to not just finish on the podium but score his first points as well.
With a change in circumstances by both changing weather as well as a now well rubbered in track thanks to F1’s qualifying session, suspicion was, the race was going to look different from the one that morning.
The race started with the usual chaos. With thirty cars on track, all on the same part of the track, nothing else was expected. After a slow start, Cohen found himself already behind Novalak (who started from p2) into Tarzan corner and Hoggard was the first to fly off the track. Hauger ran slightly into Martins rear into turn one but both continued without damage.
At the end of the second lap, the cars seemingly started to settle in but unfortunately for Colombo that wasn’t the case. After a squabble with Yeany in turn 1, he found himself with a left rear puncture, causing him to lose control over the car into turn two. Unable to continue by himself, a safety car was brought out. It was then, things officially settled in until two laps later. The marshalls had been incredibly fast at removing Colombo’s car and the race was ready to be restarted.
There was again, the usual bouncing about but apart from Iwasa who had missed the breaking point, everyone remained on track. Into the first three corners, the battle for second was concluding three drivers, Martins, who had restarted the race in fourth, was the big winner after Vesti had taken a go at p2 but found himself back in p4 just two corners later, now behind the French racing driver.
Just like that morning, a DRS train seemed to form with Novalak in the lead never further than around one second away.
Iwasa, who was on the podium in the first race, was the second driver to retire from the race. After pitting in lap 8, Iwasa went back in again two laps later to not come out for that day again.
The fight for the podium was much more interesting than in the first race, with Vesti right on Martins’ rear end of the car and Martins himself, trying to overtake Cohen on every possibility. On lap 14, Martins was finally close enough to Cohen to overtake him. At the end of the lap prior, Martins found himself with so much overspeed, it took him about half of the straight to overtake the Israelian. And with the clean air ahead, he took no time to step on the throttle to hunt down Novalak for the win. This left Cohen without the DRS assistance and just as it had happened with Martins, it was a relatively easy overtake for Vesti to take third place just one lap later.
In that same lap, Martins had closed the gap down to just 0.2 seconds and made his first attempt. Though feeble the first time around, Martins made the second attempt stick and found himself in the lead of the race.
Further back, Hauger who had been stuck behind his teammate Caldwell for the entire race finally found himself in front of him. One lap later, he overtook Cohen for fourth.
In the twentieth lap, just five laps before the checkered flag, the safety car was brought back on track for a second time. Cordeel, who had already been unlucky in the first race had found himself beached in the gravel of turn one - which had already been used by multiple drivers - and had been dug in too deep to get out.
The safety car was yet again only deployed for 3 laps, leaving the drivers to race for two more laps. With the certainty of not impeding their result for the third and final race (as the starting grid had already been decided by qualifying), the drivers could risk it all for points.
For Hauger to maintain his 28 points lead, it was essential to finish ahead of nearest rival Doohan, who seemed to have dropped back slightly after the restart. But then disaster struck for Hauger. He was tapped by Cohen and dropped back significantly with a right rear puncture, no points for the championship leader. With Doohan now in eighth and with the opportunity to rise still, it seemed that his lead was going to shrink even more.
But disaster didn’t just strike Hauger as Doohan went off-road in the final lap, losing sight of a point-finish himself as well.
In all the chaos of the final two laps, Victor Martins and David Schumacher found themselves in comfortable positions. Martins didn’t get much of a fight in the final laps leading to the finish line, meaning he crossed the finish line for the final time with a comfortable distance to Novalak behind. The French driver had come from fifth position to take home the win, meaning a home victory for MP motorsport and Martins’ very first win in Formula Three. The total number of drivers winning a race this year is now up to twelve.
Schumacher had found himself in fifth after starting fourteenth, having gained nine positions over the course of the twenty-four laps the race lasted (without the laps they were behind the safety car, only 18 laps).
Sargeant later said he had been racing without sixth gear, which could explain the sudden drop he made after gaining quite some positions. In his words, he wouldn't advise driving without sixth gear, a light approach to something that was out of his control.
The podium and with that, highest point scorers of the second race were Martins, Novalak and Vesti.
Race Three...
Race three, just like races one and two, started with penalties. Cohen was given a three-place grid penalty for taking Hauger out of the points, Ugran had been given a ten-second penalty for race two, dropping him from twelfth to twenty fourth and Villagómez had the penalty from qualifying in which he was unable to stop at the weighing bridge.
With the stands filled to the brim, the race started and unlike the first two races, the start was relatively calm. Just a puff of dirt flying into the air left and right and a slight collision between Crawford and Doohan that saw him dropping two places to sixth but both cars intact.
Collet made a beautiful move on the inside of turn three, moving him up into seventh at the expense of Sargeant and Hauger flew off in the distance, being out of DRS range before the DRS was even enabled.
The first interesting fights were starting to set up to be the most interesting for a while. In front, it was Martins who was putting pressure on Schumacher for second and further down the back, it was Leclerc who was putting pressure on Vesti for the final point finishing place.
As the laps ticked on, the gap between Hauger and Schumacher grew larger and larger. When the first bigger event of the race happened, he already had a gap of a couple of seconds.
Nannini and Correa had been fighting for position but Correa locked up on the inside of turn one, pushing Nannini wide. Luckily for the large gap, Hauger had up in front, Nannini kept the car running and could get out of the gravel trap on his own, meaning a yellow flag was all that was needed. It did lead to a ten-second penalty for Correa as he was deemed the one to have caused the incident.
It was then, the only fight ‘worth’ showing was the fight for second. Schumacher was still being pressured by Martins but Martins had still Novalak on his back. On lap twenty-two, Martins tried to make a move on the inside of turn three but hit Schumacher, who lost control of the car and slid into the wall on the top of the turn, just off the track. With just three more laps to go, it was decided there was only a virtual safety car needed. It must have been a relief for Hauger who was already five seconds ahead. Martins received a ten-second penalty for the incident.
Just like the day prior, the late restart caused drivers to take more risks. Van der Helm’s final race in his country didn’t end as planned as he too ended up in the wall, just a few meters away from where Schumacher’s car had been taken away, causing a yellow flag in the final lap. Yet again, Correa was the driver involved and for this incident he also received a ten-second penalty, making it twenty in total.
For Hauger it didn’t make a difference as he crossed the line four his fourth win of the season with a gap of 5.3 seconds to Novalak, taking the fastest lap home as well. 27 points in the bag, 15 more points than his main championship rival Jack Doohan, who finished in fourth. It gives him a lead of 43 points ahead of Doohan, who on his turn has a 28 points lead ahead of Novalak.
The final podium place went to Smolyar, who, thanks to the collision between Schumacher and Martins moved from fifth to third.
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