Taylor Barnard goes from 10th to maiden victory in the F3 Feature Race in Belgium, but Gabriel Bortoleto will have to wait to secure the tile.
Barnard mastered mixed conditions on the Spa-Francorchamps circuit and survived a late challenge from runner-up Chrisitan Mansell, who climbed a remarkable 21 places up the order.
The start of the 15-lap Feature was temporarily halted due to inclement weather, with several portions of the Spa circuit being affected by rain.
A rolling start procedure saw pole-sitter Josep Maria Marti lead the field to green, but he quickly fell down the order, struggling for grip on slick tyres, as Paul Aron rapidly ascended to assume an early lead, having made the correct call to start on wet tyres.
Barnard was also amongst the wet runners charging through to the front early on, with all those on slicks shuffling down the pack as conditions clearly weren’t set for dry tyres, as evidenced by pole-sitter Marti falling to 11th by the second lap.
Mansell had already climbed 20 places up the order to third place by Lap 4, shortly before the Safety Car was called out following Oliver Goethe going backwards into the wall at Eau Rouge.
Goethe walked away from the incident unscathed, but the Safety Car turned the race on its head as then race leader Aron and several other wet runners opted to pit for slick tyres, as the circuit slowly started to dry.
This left Barnard out in the lead, ahead of Mansell and fellow wet tyre runners Nikita Bedrin, Alejandro Garcia, Sebastian Montoya and Sophia Floersch.
Championship leader Bortoleto struggled early on and was in 20th at the Safety Car restart at the end of Lap 7, having had to surrender two places to Ido Cohen and Jonny Edgar after being deemed to have made illegal passes at the rolling start at the beginning of the race.
At the front of the pack, Barnard and Mansell cruised off ahead for a two-way battle for the lead, as cool temperatures meant it took too long for those on dry tyres further back to get up to speed.
Mansell made a number of attempts at taking the lead from Barnard, at one point going straight on at Les Combes, before making a successful pass on Lap 13.
But shortly after Mansell assumed the lead, Barnard retook it and maintained his advantage through to the chequered flag, for his first-ever triumph in F3 and his team Jenzer Motorsport’s first win since 2019.
Behind Barnard and Mansell was third-placed Bedrin, ahead of Garcia and Montoya in fourth and fifth.
Floersch came home in sixth to become the first female driver to score points in F3, ahead of Caio Collet and Aron in seventh and eighth, the pair of them getting up to speed on their dry tyres too late to climb further up the order.
Pole-sitter Marti came home in ninth and Franco Colapinto rounded out the top 10.
Championship leader Bortoleto will have to wait until the season finale in Monza to take the title after his late charge on dry tyres to 11th place left him one point shy of claiming the title on Sunday.
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