Hitech driver Luke Browning converted his pole position into a Formula 3 Feature race win worth the lead of the Championship. Prema’s Gabriele Mini and Dino Beganovic completed the podium places.
While Tim Tramnitz dropped to P7 after being close to going into anti-stall during the start, Browning kept his lead relatively comfortably.
Right behind, Beganovic overtook multiple cars, including his teammate Arvid Lindblad to go from fifth to second place, chasing the race lead.
It was a two-three-four for Prema Racing after the first few laps of the race, with Beganovic followed by Lindblad and Mini.
Noel Leon, who started from 13th on the grid had a spectacular start and first few laps, moving up to sixth splitting the two Campos cars of Oliver Goethe and Sebastian Montoya.
Alex Dunne was also on the hunt during the first stage of the race, as he moved two places up from ninth to get past Nikola Tsolov and Montoya.
On Lap 7, Leon managed to sweep Dunne to keep making places, claiming fifth. Meanwhile, Montoya went to the pits to retire his car after contact with Tramnitz.
While the two leading Prema cars stayed in their positions, Lindblad descended to seventh after Goethe collided with his rear going into Turn 3, causing a bad exit for the Briton.
The incident was noted by the FIA briefly, with an investigation into the Montoya and Tramnitz incident also announced shortly after.
The first virtual safety car was summoned on Lap 12 as Campos driver Mari Boya, who won the Sprint Race at the last event in Spain, collided with Nikita Bedrin into Turn 3.
After a very brief VSC, the race was green-flagged and Leon wasted no time trying to make more places and move up into the podium.
Nonetheless, he had contact with Goethe and caused a puncture on his VAR Motorsport car, causing him to go into the gravel and lose everything he gained at the early stages of the race.
Tramnitz received a 10-second time penalty over his incident with Montoya with Dunne following briefly after with the same penalty for causing a collision. The MP driver was running in fifth and the penalty would make him drop off the point-scoring positions.
Boya also got a 10-second time penalty for his incident with Bedrin.
In the lead of the race, while Browning led all laps relatively comfortably until Lap 17, he started to get heavily pressured by Beganovic, who was close to the Briton’s mirrors.
The gap between the race leader and the Prema car was down to two-tenths into Lap 18, with Beganovic waiting for his opportunity to try a move for the lead.
Christian Mansell, who was running surrounded by his ART teammates for the majority of the race made the move on both Tsolov and Lindblad for sixth.
The charge didn’t stop there for Mansell, as he swept Goethe to claim fifth place with five laps to go.
Meanwhile, in the lead, Browning kept ahead relatively smoothly but Beganovic was still less than half a second behind, looking for an opportunity to make a move.
Nonetheless, Beganovic was the one under the thread as Mini tried to claim second place with a move into Turn 3.
Ultimately, the Swedish driver kept his place with only two laps to go, successfully defending from Mini and Mansell, who were looking to get into the podium places.
This didn’t last long, as Mini was able to move past his Prema teammate with a fantastic move around the outside of Turn 4.
Nonetheless, Beganovic fought back with a move into Turn 3 on the last lap, with Mini re-gaining the place again repeating his move into Turn 4.
This battle granted a huge gap to Browning, who comfortably crossed the line in first, moving into the lead of the Formula 3 Drivers’ Championship.
Prema completed the podium after their fantastic fight for second between their drivers, with Mini bringing it home ahead of Beganovic.
Mansell, disappointed after what he felt was a missed shot for the win yesterday during the Sprint, just missed on the podium places and had to settle with fourth. Nonetheless, It was an impressive comeback from eleventh on the grid.
Right behind was Goethe in fifth, with ART’s Tsolov finishing sixth after his win on Saturday.
Lindblad, Laurens Van Hoepen, Leonardo Fornaroli, and Dunne completed the top-10 after the penalties were all applied.
