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Josep Marti took a comfortable win ahead of Leonardo Fornaroli in Formula 3’s first race back in Monaco.
How it happened
Polesitter Josep Marti got a good start ahead of the driver next to him, Leonardo Fornaroli. Drama at the first corner saw MP Motorsport’s Jonny Edgar come together with one of the Trident cars and hit the wall. This incident brought out the safety car on the first lap. Edgar’s teammate Mari Boya also made contact with his car and had to retire from the race as a result.
The Safety Car lasted until the end of Lap 5, at which point Marti led the pack back to racing. He maintained his lead over Fornaroli but couldn’t quite pull away from his competitor.
Two laps after the green flag, DRS was enabled. Fornaroli was still within one second of his rival and started chasing him down for the lead. Behind them, Franco Colapinto closed in on third-placed Gregoire Saucy, and even further down the field the driver who won pole position yesterday, Gabriele Mini, had made up a position at the start and was looking for another.
Mini, stuck between the PREMA Racing cars of Paul Aron and Dino Beganovic, was stuck in the middle of a close battle for position. By Lap 1o Aron had slipped out of DRS range of the car in front of him and was more vulnerable, but Mini also had to defend from Beganovic behind.
Settling down
With Monaco being a circuit where overtaking is notoriously difficult, everything began to settle down without many changes of position throughout the field.
By Lap 16 Marti pulled over two and a half seconds on Fornaroli and comfortably led the rest of the grid. But behind Fornaroli, Saucy stayed within the one-second gap and continued to be a threat to his position.
They continued to run closely in the closing stages. Then, with just two laps to go, Saucy made a mistake and locked up, allowing Fornaroli to finally pull out of DRS range.
While most drivers were unable to overtake, many stayed close behind their rivals and waited for mistakes. But for Marti, the win was in sight.
The Campos Racing driver was the inaugural race winner this season, and he took his second win in this Monaco Sprint Race by more than eight seconds over Fornaroli and Saucy.
Franco Colapinto, the only MP Motorsport driver to finish the race, came in fourth place ahead of Taylor Barnard and Gabriel Bortoleto. Behind them were Sebastian Montoya, Luke Browning, and Caio Collet. Paul Aron, who will start tomorrow’s Feature Race from third on the grid, finished tenth and picked up the final point of the day.
Full results can be found here.
Feature Image Credit: Joe Portlock – Getty Images