Home Featured Ralf Aron claims Pau Grand Prix title in rain-shortened Euro F3 race three

Ralf Aron claims Pau Grand Prix title in rain-shortened Euro F3 race three

by Peter Allen

Pau

Ralf Aron claimed the 2018 Pau Grand Prix title in a rain-shortened third and final race of the Formula 3 European Championship season opener.

The rain began to fall shortly before the race, with many drivers forced into a late switch from slick to wet tyres on the grid before the formation lap.

At the start, Prema driver Aron jumped from third on the grid past the front-row occupying Hitech cars of Enaam Ahmed and Alex Palou to take the lead.

Aron led by 1.1 seconds at the end of the first lap and his advantage was touching the two-second mark at the end of lap eight when the safety car was deployed after Ferdinand Habsburg and Marcus Armstrong collided on the pit straight in heavy spray as conditions worsened.

Even when the two cars were recovered, the field remained under the safety car until the red flags came out with the clock stopped with just under 13 minutes left.

Twenty minutes later, the decision was taken to declare a result, with Aron the winner ahead of Ahmed and Jehan Daruvala, who went from fifth to third at the start.

Fabio Scherer was fourth in front of Motopark team-mate Dan Ticktum, who is under investigation for forcing Armstrong up onto the pavement and into the barriers when the Kiwi tried to stay around the outside of the Briton exiting La Gare for the first time.

Armstrong dropped down the order and was thereafter struggling with damage prior to his incident with Habsburg, which will also be investigated.

Prema pair Robert Shwartzman and Mick Schumacher came from the sixth row of the grid to finish sixth and seventh, with Jonathan Aberdein, Ben Hingeley and Marino Sato rounding out the top 10.

Race two winner Sacha Fenestraz was fifth in front of Ticktum on the run up to Pont Oscar on the first lap before falling down the order and pitting.

He leaves round one as the championship lead however after only half-points were awarded for race three, leaving Aron 2.5 points behind Fenestraz.

Palou had an awful getaway from the front row and was down in 16th when his misery was compounded with a drive-through penalty for lining up to the left of his grid box at the start.

 

77?me Grand Prix de Pau results (11 laps)
Pos Name Team Time
1 Ralf Aron Prema
2 Enaam Ahmed Hitech GP +1.051s
3 Jehan Daruvala Carlin +2.130s
4 Fabio Scherer Motopark +2.768s
5 Dan Ticktum Motopark +4.904s
6 Robert Shwartzman Prema +5.839s
7 Mick Schumacher Prema +6.769s
8 Jonathan Aberdein Motopark +8.378s
9 Ben Hingeley Hitech GP +10.481s
10 Marino Sato Motopark +11.599s
11 Nikita Troitskiy Carlin +12.731s
12 Juri Vips Motopark +13.625s
13 Guan Yu Zhou Prema +14.810s
14 Kevyan Andres Van Amersfoort Racing +15.749s
15 Artem Petrov Van Amersfoort Racing +16.270s
16 Ameya Vaidyanathan Carlin +17.731s
17 Sebastian Fernandez Motopark +19.332s
18 Julian Hanses ma-con +20.740s
19 Alex Palou Hitech GP +23.142s
20 Sacha Fenestraz Carlin +24.763s
Ret Marcus Armstrong Prema
Ret Ferdinand Habsburg Carlin
Ret Devlin DeFrancesco Carlin
Fastest Lap: Aron, 1m23.670s

Championship Standings
1?
Fenestraz 37? ?2 Aron 34.5? ?3 Ahmed 27? ?4 Zhou 25? ?5 Armstrong 25? ?6 Palou 24? ?7?Ticktum 20? ?8?Daruvala 15.5? ?9 Hingeley 13? ?10?Shwartzman 10