F3 Austria: Crawford claims maiden win, heartbreak for Correa

The Prema Racing driver started third, dropping to fourth before a heartbreaking mechanical issue for Juan Manuel Correa put him out of the race, promoting the American. 

He fought past Franco Colapinto, diving down the inside on lap 10 to take second, before sweeping round the outside of Collet at turn 10 on lap 14 for the lead. 

By lap 17 he led by 0.7s, and held on despite Collet’s DRS advantage to take his first series win. 

Collet took second, his best result of the year so far, while Colapinto held off a charging Leclerc for third, the Monegasque driver having made up five places to take fourth. 

Polesitter Collet held the lead of the line at the start, while Colapinto and Crawford tussled for third, the former emerging in front. 

Correa took the lead before racing was neutralised by a safety car, prompted by Rafael Villagomez’s stranded VAR car after contact with David Vidales, who pitted for a new front wing. 

Racing resumed on lap four, with the Trident pair of Roman Stanek and Zane Maloney tussling into Tturn 4, while further back, Ollie Bearman, Kaylen Frederick and Arthur Leclerc fought for eighth. 

Heartbreak came for Correa on lap six, the ART driver suffering a mechanical issue on the start-finish straight and plummeting down the order. 

Bearman and Leclerc passed Stanek into sixth and seventh on lap eight before the virtual safety car was deployed the following lap, with William Alatalo suffering a mechanical issue in his Jenzer..  

The safety car came out again on lap 11, with Bearman and Maloney making contact after the pair went into turn 5 three-wide with Leclerc, ending the Trident driver’s race. 

Crawford took the lead shortly after racing resumed on lap 14 after a fierce battle through turns 4 to 8 with Collet. 

Crawford had a lead of 0.7s by lap 17, while further back Edgar and Stanek traded places for fifth. 

Leclerc was rapidly closing on Colapinto by the penultimate lap, but was unable to make it past by the chequered flag. 

Bearman had made it back up to sixth by the end of the race, but a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage during an early battle with Frederick dropped him to 16th. 

Stanek finished fifth, with Frederick in sixth and Edgar in seventh. Championship leader Martins, Alexander Smolyar and feature race polesitter Isack Hadjar rounded off the top 10. 

F3 Austria - Race 1 results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Gap
1	5	Jak Crawford	Prema Powerteam
2	10	Caio Collet	MP Motorsport	0.600
3	29	Franco Colapinto	Van Amersfoort Racing	1.000
4	4	Arthur Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	1.200
5	2	Roman Staněk	Trident	2.300
6	17	Kaylen Frederick	HitechGP	6.100
7	1	Jonny Edgar	Trident	7.200
8	7	Victor Martins	ART Grand Prix	7.500
9	11	Alexander Smolyar	MP Motorsport	8.100
10	18	Isack Hadjar	HitechGP	8.500
11	8	Gregoire Saucy	ART Grand Prix	8.900
12	26	Zak O'Sullivan	Carlin	9.300
13	22	Pepe Martí	Campos Racing	9.700
14	23	Ido Cohen	Jenzer Motorsport	10.300
15	16	Francesco Pizzi	Charouz Racing System	10.500
16	6	Oliver Bearman	Prema Powerteam	10.600
17	31	Reece Ushijima	Van Amersfoort Racing	11.200
18	12	Kush Maini	MP Motorsport	12.400
19	27	Brad Benavides	Carlin	16.100
20	24	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport	17.100
21	21	Hunter Yeany	Campos Racing	19.700
22	14	László Tóth	Charouz Racing System	19.900
23	19	Nazim Azman	HitechGP	21.100
24	20	David Vidales	Campos Racing	21.600
25	28	Enzo Trulli	Carlin	50.500
26	15	Zdenek Chovanec	Charouz Racing System	54.400
	3	Zane Maloney	Trident
	25	William Alatalo	Jenzer Motorsport
	9	Juan Manuel Correa	ART Grand Prix
	30	Rafael Villagomez	Van Amersfoort Racing
View full results