Dennis Hauger won the third race of the FIA Formula 3 weekend in Hungary, taking the Norwegian another step closer to the championship title.
The PREMA pilot had a long tussle with his team-mate and pole-sitter Arthur Leclerc before passing him to control the race and go on for a well-deserved victory.
Race 3 began with the Safety Car leading the field for a few laps due to the wet conditions before a rolling start.
When the race got underway, Leclerc led the field from Hauger and the Trident trio of Jack Doohan, David Schumacher, Clement Novalak.
Less than a lap under green-flag conditions and Victor Martins, who had started 24th found himself involved in a collision with Oliver Rasmussen at Turn 9.
The Safety Car came back out again with the top five remaining in the same order ahead of Alex Smolyar, Frederik Vesti, Olli Caldwell, Ayumu Iwasa and Logan Sargeant.
After racing resumed, Caldwell slid off the track at Turn 1 on Lap 5 and lost eighth position to Iwasa before re-joining.
At the front, Leclerc’s stint in the lead came to an end as Hauger found more grip on the outside into Turn 2 to move ahead on Lap 9.
Four laps later and Enzo Fittipaldi overtook his Charouz team-mate Sargeant at Turn 13 to elevate himself into the points in tenth.
With the track continuously drying out and finding water to cool down the tyres, Iwasa began to struggle and fell from eighth at the beginning of Lap 17 to 12th on the next tour.
Green-flag racing was brought to a premature end following a collision between Ido Cohen and Laszlo Toth at Turn 2 with three laps to go.
The Safety Car was deployed for the third and final time, as Hauger followed it over the line for his third victory of the season.
Team-mate Leclerc was second ahead of Doohan, with Schumacher and Novalak making it three Tridents in the top five.
Smolyar was sixth in front of his ART team-mate Vesti, with Caldwell, Fittipaldi and Sargeant completing the points-scorers in the top ten.
Hauger’s margin at the top of the Drivers’ Standings has increased significantly to 63 points over Doohan in second, with Caldwell a further three points off in third.
The next time the series resumes in action again will be at Spa on the 27-29 August, supporting the Belgian Grand Prix weekend.
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