Franco Colapinto won the first race of the Formula 3 weekend from Melbourne, a race that saw four Safety Car interventions.
Colapinto started the race from sixth on the grid but kept his nose clean in the opening laps to move forward and place himself in a strong position.
Ahead of him, Oliver Goethe, who started from second place, retired on the opening lap after making contact with Luke Browning. The incident would be the first of many involving Browning, who was in for a difficult day.
The first Safety Car was deployed to deal with Goethe’s stricken Trident, and when it came back into the pit lane, Browning set off in chase of Sebastian Montoya, who was leading.
However, at Turn 11, Browning mounted the kerb and dropped down the order, with Colapinto capitalising to move into second place.
On the next lap, Colapinto seized his opportunity and moved ahead of Montoya at Turn 9 for the lead, a position that he would not relinquish before the end of the race.
Moments after Colapinto’s race-winning overtake, Ido Cohen brought out a second Safety Car after making contact with Hugh Barter on the run up to Turn 11.
A lengthy delay followed while the debris was clear, but soon after the Mercedes-AMG Safety Car returned to the pit lane, it was back out when local driver Tommy Smith ran too wide out of the final corner and hit the wall.
A late dash to the finish was on the cards, with Zak O’Sullivan making the most of the opportunity to move in front of Sebastian Montoya for second place.
The race finished under a Safety Car when Alejandro Garcia was pitched into the wall on the penultimate lap.
Outside of the top three, Paul Aron was fourth after a last-lap battle with team-mate Dino Beganovic, who classified in sixth behind Gabriele Mini.
Sunday’s Feature Race pole-sitter Gabriel Bortoleto was seventh, ahead of Trident team-mate Leonardo Fornaroli.
Mari Boya and Gregore Saucy rounded out the top 10.
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