Antonio Giovinazzi took an impressive victory at the Hockenheimring today, in round two of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship. Giovinazzi held off F3 veteran Felix Rosenqvist to take the win in his Volkswagen powered Dallara, despite tricky wet conditions and two restarts in an eventful race. Gustavo Menezes survived numerous incidents to take points for tenth while Ryan Tveter was left to watch from the side-lines after contact ended his race early.
Lining up on the grid in wet conditions, Giovinazzi looked to have a better start than pole man Rosenqvist, but suffered some wheel spin when moving up the gears which allowed Rosenqvist to take the initial lead into the first corner. The Jagonya Ayam driver wasted no time in staking his claim on the race though, snatching the lead from Rosenqvist at the hairpin on lap one.
Behind him, Gustavo Menezes was 12th at the end of lap one having started 11th, while Ryan Tveter made a good start, moving up to 13th from his 17th placed grid slot. Tveter lost out a few laps later though when Callum Ilot took 13th place from the young American.
Controlling the race from the front, Giovinazzi had built up a comfortable gap when the first of three safety car periods neutralised the racing action. At the restart, the Italian had a charging Rosenqvist behind him but Giovinazzi made the perfect move to draw away again. Still pushing hard, Giovinazzi hit a wet kerb and had to recover from a sideways moment. Menezes meanwhile was on the move, passing Santino Ferrucci for 10th place to get himself into the points.
The second safety car of the race came out when Tatiana Calderon in the sister Carlin car was left stranded on track after contact with another car, once again reducing Giovinazzi’s advantage to nothing. Again though, the Jagonya Ayam man pulled away from Rosenqvist, not letting the Prema driver gain any advantage.
As the race entered the final stages, Tveter saw his race come to a close; contact with another car caused race ending front right suspension damage, but Tveter managed to get his limping car off the track and out of harm’s way.
With Menezes still running in the points in tenth, Giovinazzi was pushing hard at the front still, setting the fastest lap of the race on lap 14. In an eventful race though, the safety car was needed one final time, as a tractor was needed to recover another stranded car from the gravel traps. With the race now running to time rather than laps, the clock was ticking down and as the cars circulated behind the safety car it was clear the green flag wouldn’t be shown. Having held off Rosenqvist through the race, Giovinazzi took his first victory of the 2015 season with Menezes 10th.
A delighted Giovinazzi said, “I had a really good race. We saw this morning in qualifying that we had good pace so I wanted to get past Felix quickly at the start. I found good grip at the hairpin and then managed to keep him behind me although it wasn’t easy with the safety cars. I want to thank everyone at Jagonya Ayam with Carlin for a good car today we can do the same later in the weekend too.”
Also in the points, team mate Menezes said, “We had a difficult build-up to the start of the weekend, but I had a great start to the race but then unfortunately I got caught up in between a bit of a mess which lost me a couple of positions. I managed to recover into the points, and I suppose that’s as much as you can ask for in a race with two or three safety cars. We had the pace to go a bit further so it’s a bit of a shame but we will put that to good use tomorrow.”
Race two of the weekend takes place at 11.05 local time tomorrow.
-Ends -
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