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Paul Aron of PREMA Racing took victory in the Formula 3 Sprint Race in Austria after a tough Qualifying yesterday and spoke to media, including FormulaNerds, about his performance.
Formula 3 arrived in Austria for Round Eight of the 2023 season. Heading into the weekend, Gabriel Bortoleto had a substantial lead in the championship ahead of Pepe Martí and Dino Beganovic.
During Qualifying, there were multiple track limits violations that caused the grid order to change. PREMA Racing’s Paul Aron did achieve his first F3 pole position in Qualifying yesterday. However, his celebrations were short-lived after his lap time was deleted, moving him down the order to fourth. This meant Gregoire Saucy took pole position, which was his maiden F3 pole as well.
However, despite a tricky Qualifying, Aron had a successful Saturday Sprint Race as he took victory after 20 laps. Aron began the Sprint Race in eighth but was able to move up through the field and after the Safety Car, he battled Martí for the lead.
From eighth on the grid to race WINNER!
A simply unforgettable maiden win for @PaulAron16!#AustrianGP #F3 @PREMA_Team @MercedesAMGF1 pic.twitter.com/8C6uwLy63x
— Formula 3 (@Formula3) July 1, 2023
After the race, in the post-race press conference, Aron spoke to FormulaNerds along with other accredited media, about his maiden F3 win.
A race to redemption
Speaking on his first win in his rookie season, Aron said:
“Emotions are through the roof. Obviously, it’s still a Sprint Race, it’s not a Feature Race win, but it does feel a lot more than that just because of what happened yesterday. PREMA gave me an amazing car and I was fully on it.
“We did the pole position and we were quickest throughout the whole Qualifying session, but sadly my lap was deleted, which is fair.
“I mean track limits are there for a reason, but it obviously hurt and it feels like today is a bit of a redemption.
“Starting from the back of the grid and fighting through the pack with amazing pace, I really enjoyed the race and finally we got the win. So yeah, super happy and tomorrow’s another day.”
"Wooohoohoohoo! Call that redemption baby! They took away my pole, they can't take away my win!"
We think Paul Aron is happy with that one! ?#AustrianGP #F3 pic.twitter.com/h0mk0n5FGS
— Formula 3 (@Formula3) July 1, 2023
Looking ahead to Sunday
Throughout the weekend so far, Aron has looked to be at one with his PREMA car. The Mercedes junior driver has also been one of, if not the, quickest driver on the grid. However, whilst he was victorious in the Sprint, the Feature Race may tell another story.
Today’s F3 Sprint saw a wet track with all 30 drivers using the wet tyre. The Feature Race tomorrow is early in the morning, but the weather is expected to be dry with the selected tyre being the soft compound, which the drivers experienced in Monaco.
After his maiden win, FormulaNerds asked Aron what the focus will be in order to prepare for the race tomorrow. In response, Aron said:
“Obviously, a whole different game tomorrow as it’ll be dry. I think the race will be super interesting because we’re running on the soft tyres and previously this year we’ve seen that there’s quite a lot of degradation on these tyres.
“The Red Bull Ring is a track that is quite low degradation but there are many high-speed corners that might cause some graining. We’ll have to manage that but it’s hard to prepare for it to be honest because we haven’t had so much experience on these tyres.
“The only experience we had was in Monaco, which is a completely different circuit. So we’ll just try to be open-minded, get good sleep obviously because the race is super early tomorrow and then just manage on the go I guess.”
So far this season, Aron has scored points in all but two of the races. Before his win today, Aron’s highest result was P3 in the Australian Sprint Race and Monaco Feature Race.
The young PREMA driver currently sits fourth in the Championship Standings after the Sprint. With Austria being a track where overtaking is relatively easy and the dry weather expected, Aron could make up some good positions and score more points in the Feature Race.
Headline Image: GettyImages