Martins seals maiden F3 victory in drama-packed Race 2 at Zandvoort

Victor Martins clinched his maiden victory in FIA Formula 3 in an incident-packed Race 2 at Zandvoort.

The Frenchman was fifth on the grid before he carved his way through the field to get up into the lead by Lap 16 ahead of Clement Novalak, who finished second.

Novalak snatched the lead into Turn 1 at the start from reverse-grid pole sitter Ido Cohen, while good starts from Frederik Vesti and Martins sent Olli Caldwell down from third to fifth.

The Safety Car was deployed on Lap 3 due to Lorenzo Colombo crashing his Campos into the barrier at Turn 2 following contact with Hunter Yeany on the exit of the corner before.

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The top ten under the Safety Car period were Novalak, Cohen, Vesti, Martins, Caldwell, Dennis Hauger, Caio Collet, Logan Sargeant, Jak Crawford and Jack Doohan.

On the restart, Martins made a lunge down the inside of Vesti to go up to third position at Turn 3.

Lap 14 saw Martins line up Cohen at Turn 1 by going around the outside to move into second.

Vesti replicated the move on the next lap on the Israeli driver to go up to the podium places.

Lap 16 was the moment Martins closed in on Novalak and executed the same overtake on his compatriot as he did with Cohen earlier to take the lead.

Further behind, Hauger was gaining around by passing Caldwell for fifth on Lap 18 and then Cohen on the next lap to fourth.

Five laps remaining and Amaury Cordeel spun his Campos into the gravel trap at Turn 1, enough to bring out the Safety Car again.

The top ten by this point were Martins, Novalak, Vesti, Hauger, Cohen, Caldwell, Collet, Doohan, David Schumacher and Jak Crawford.

The Safety Car peeled into the pits for a two-lap shootout to the flag. The drama began with Hauger and Cohen making contact on the exit of Turn 3, resulting with the Norwegian getting a puncture and the Israeli suffering damage to his front wing. Both would drop down the order drastically and out of the points.

On the final lap whilst being in the top six, Doohan ran wide at Turn 8 by dipping a wheel onto the grass and falling out of the points as well.

The chequered flag saw Martins come out on top with Novalak second and Vesti third.

Fourth was Collet ahead of Schumacher, with Caldwell in sixth ahead of Arthur Leclerc and Crawford.

Matteo Nannini picked up a couple of points for ninth, and Logan Sargeant completed the top ten. The fastest lap points also went to Martins.

With the top two in the championship not scoring in Race 2, Hauger still leads by Doohan by 28 points with one more race still to come from the penultimate round of FIA Formula 3.

Race 3 begins on Sunday morning at 10:45 track time.