Silverstone GP3: Alesi holds off Aitken to score maiden win

Having been given a five-second penalty for causing a collision with Niko Kari, Dorian Boccolacci was relegated to eighth in Saturday's feature race, and thus was set to start the sprint race from pole.

However, the Frenchman was unable to even make it to the grid, his car being pulled into the pits as the field started the formation lap.

That gave Alesi pole position, and the Trident driver kept the lead off the line.

Aitken gained two places in three corners to run second, and closely followed Alesi for the first three laps before the safety car, brought out because of Julien Falchero and Steijn Schothorst both retiring in the gravel at Turn 1, neutralised the action.

Alesi stayed ahead after the restart and, while he couldn't pull away from Aitken for the rest of the race, the latter was never close enough to try to make a move.

Alesi eventually won the race by 0.7s from Aitken, while Red Bull protege Niko Kari held off Saturday winner George Russell for third place.

Kari and Russell passed Arjun Maini before and after the safety car phase respectively, and followed the top two in the late stages.

Instead of attacking Aitken, Kari had to focus on keeping the charging Russell at bay, the Finn securing his maiden podium finish in GP3.

Maini was fifth, four seconds behind Russell, ahead of his Jenzer teammate Alessio Lorandi.

Lorandi was involved in an incident with Anthoine Hubert, who he slightly forced off-track, but the Italian escaped without a penalty.

Hubert dropped down to eighth as Kevin Jorg also overtook him.

Race results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	Giuliano Alesi	Trident	15	30'04.801
2	Jack Aitken	ART Grand Prix	15	0.724
3	Niko Kari	Arden International	15	1.431
4	George Russell	ART Grand Prix	15	1.857
5	Arjun Maini	Jenzer Motorsport	15	5.900
6	Alessio Lorandi	Jenzer Motorsport	15	7.257
7	Kevin Jörg	Trident	15	8.099
8	Anthoine Hubert	ART Grand Prix	15	8.447
9	Santino Ferrucci	DAMS	15	10.744
10	Marcos Siebert	Campos Racing	15	11.712
11	Raoul Hyman	Campos Racing	15	12.387
12	Leonardo Pulcini	Arden International	15	17.079
13	Ryan Tveter	Trident	15	17.645
14	Bruno Baptista	DAMS	15	22.595
15	Tatiana Calderon	DAMS	15	23.280
16	Nirei Fukuzumi	ART Grand Prix	15	28.539
	Steijn Schothorst	Arden International	3	12 laps
	Julien Falchero	Campos Racing	3	12 laps
	Dorian Boccolacci	Trident	0