Ferrari junior Maya Weug took her maiden F1 Academy in the season-ending Race 3 at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.
The Dutch driver capitalised on a chaotic start from sixth on the grid to take a dominant maiden victory ahead of Alpine’s Abbi Pulling and Tommy Hilfiger’s Nerea Marti.
Pulling lined up on pole alongside the American Haas-backed driver Chloe Chambers.
The F1 Academy champion led away at lights out but there was disaster behind.
Mercedes’ Doriane Pin tried to sweep around the outside of Chambers at Turn 1, but tagged the American’s front wing, spinning them both out.
Controversially it was Chambers who was penalised for the incident by the stewards.
That let Red Bull’s Hamda Al Qubaisi sweep into second, with Weug inheriting third on Lap 1 and the pair of them tagged onto the back of Pulling’s rear wing.
On Lap 2, Weug sent it down the inside of H. Al Qubaisi at Turn 5 and the pair went side-by-side down the long straight towards Turn 6, whereby the Ferrari driver completed the move to take second.
Meanwhile, the battle for second brought fourth-placed Marti and fifth-placed Bianca Bustamante into the battle.
However, a lap later Weug wasn’t concerned with those behind as she harried race leader Pulling
Lap 4, and a train of cars back from Pulling to 15th placed Aurelia Nobels showed this was the closest race of the season.
But McLaren’s Bustamante was overzealous into Turn 6, locking in and hitting into the side of H. Al Qubaisi.
The Red Bull driver held onto third as her McLaren counterpart dropped to sixth, but Bustamante was eventually awarded a 10-second penalty.
Weug then tried a move on Pulling for the race lead into Turn 6 a lap later, with the Alpine driver escaping the inside Turn 7 run-off and Weug going wide.
Had the Ferrari driver pulled off the move?
That was the question the stewards would need to answer as the Ferrari driver felt she had a claim for first place.
Weug didn’t need to wait for the stewards however as she lunged Pulling into to Turn 5 and had to fight side-by-side with the Alpine driver all the way down to Turn 9 to take the lead.
Meanwhile, H. Al Qubaisi had run wide at Turns 6 and 7, forcing her to desperately slot back into third in front of Marti and Emely de Heus.
Weug started to build a lead of over a second on Lap 7 as Pulling now had to fend off the gaggle of cars behind her in a desperate fight for second place.
By Lap 8, Weug’s lead was up to 2.5s as Pulling led a train from second down to 15th.
Prema-operated Ferrari driver Weug had stretched the lead to 3.6s by Lap 9, benefitting from using just one set of tyres in qualifying to have a fresh set for Race 3.
Pulling meanwhile, having used two sets in Saturday’s qualifying session, was struggling to hold onto her rubber in the final race of her title campaign.
The champion was fighting tooth and nail to keep H. Al Qubaisi at bay, lap after lap.
Such was Pulling’s cork in the bottle defence over second that Weug’s lead was a crazy 9s by Lap 11.
Meanwhile, Block was having her strongest race of the campaign, fighting through Bustamante and Marti to take fourth place.
H. Al Qubaisi’s pursuit of Pulling came to a sad end on Lap 12 as she was tagged by Block from behind at Turn 7, bringing out the Safety Car as she struggled to restart her Red Bull-liveried machine.
The Safety Car came in at the end of Lap 13, allowing a one-lap sprint to the chequered flag as Weug’s massive lead was neutralised.
Weug backed the pack up ahead of the restart and dropped the hammer in the final sector to lead with a handy 0.9s advantage across the line to start the final lap.
Pulling led the chasing pack with Block behind, but the American driver was carrying several penalties for offences including tagging H. Al Qubaisi.
Weug cooly took her maiden victory, signing off on the season by handing Prema the teams’ title as Pulling held onto second to maintain her 100% podium record.
Marti inherited the final podium spot and with several penalties throughout the grid, the top-10 behind differed from how it ran across the finish line.
Aston Martin’s Tina Hausmann took fourth ahead of Jessica Edgar, but the Amex-backed driver was later penalised for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
A five-second time penalty demoted Edgar from fifth to 12th.
That meant Pin’s fight-back brought her to fifth with Sauber’s Carrie Schreiner and Lola Lovinfosse taking sixth and seventh respectively.
That left Puma’s Nobels, Red Bull Ford’s de Heus and H. Al Qubaisi to round out the top-10.
READ MORE – Alpine’s F1 Academy star Abbi Pulling wins Race 2 in Abu Dhabi
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