Nurburgring F3: Norris goes 73 points clear with win

The victory means that McLaren-Honda protege Norris now holds a 73-point advantage over nearest rival Maximilian Gunther with 150 still on the table, with Gunther at least mitigating the disaster that was his Saturday qualifying by finishing a fighting seventh.

Poleman Callum Ilott got the lead at the start from Norris, but the safety car was soon called out.

Ferdinand Habsburg, who was sixth as they sprinted away from the line, locked up and tapped Guan Yu Zhou into a spin at Turn 1, Habsburg careering into the barriers and Zhou stranded in the gravel trap in an otherwise undamaged car.

Ferrari junior Zhou even stayed aboard his car as it was winched away.

Ilott seemed to make a good restart, but the Prema Powerteam ace had no answer to Norris, who looked around the outside of Turns 1 and 2 before slipping down the inside at Turn 3.

Norris then had to run wide at Turn 4 to keep Ilott, who had stuck his nose back up the inside, at bay.

Hughes immediately moved in to attack Ilott, and pulled off a great move around the outside of Turn 1, with Hitech GP teammate Ralf Aron also slipping past Ilott at Turn 4.

By the end of this lap Hughes had a 0.826-second deficit to Norris, but the Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen inched away so that it was more than 1.5s to the good with a third of the race to go.

Hughes took a little bit out of the gap over the next few laps, before bringing it down to within a second with two laps remaining – this coincided with yellow flags at Turn 1, with Joey Mawson’s front wing laying on the track after he’d crunched into David Beckmann in a late dive.

Norris finally crossed the line 0.794s to the good over Hughes, this duo monopolising the first and second places all weekend.

“Jake was pressuring me quite a bit and I wasn’t totally comfortable,” admitted Norris.

Behind Aron and Ilott, Jehan Daruvala was close at hand in his Carlin machine to take fifth.

Some way adrift of the leading quintet, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Harrison Newey did a terrific job to fend off Gunther and Joel Eriksson for sixth.

Both Gunther and Eriksson made up several places at the start during the first-lap mayhem, and Gunther fought off Eriksson’s Motopark car in a juicy encounter through the Mercedes Arena with four laps to go.

Max Defourny (VAR) completed an impressive debut weekend in F3 by claiming points for ninth from Hitech’s Nikita Mazepin.

Mazepin was on the back of the Newey-Gunther-Eriksson train until he went off at Turn 7, Defourny having to take to the grass to pass him.

Tadasuke Makino ran a strong early fourth but had to pit for repairs sustained in the early battling.

UPDATE: Mazepin was given a 20-second time penalty because he ‘went off track and made an unsafe rejoin at Turn 7’, forcing Defourny onto the grass to pass him.

That drops Mazepin out of 10th place and promotes Sacha Fenestraz to the final point.

Race results:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time/Gap
1	Lando Norris	Carlin	35'44.949
2	Jake Hughes	Hitech GP	0.794
3	Ralf Aron	Hitech GP	2.197
4	Callum Ilott	Prema Powerteam	5.225
5	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	8.658
6	Harrison Newey	Van Amersfoort Racing	19.698
7	Maximilian Gunther	Prema Powerteam	20.361
8	Joel Eriksson	Motopark	20.851
9	Max Defourny	Van Amersfoort Racing	24.961
10	Sacha Fenestraz	Carlin	28.384
11	Mick Schumacher	Prema Powerteam	38.289
12	Marino Sato	Motopark	38.842
13	Pedro Piquet	Van Amersfoort Racing	40.555
14	Keyvan Andres	Motopark	41.713
15	David Beckmann	Motopark	44.823
16	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech GP	46.123
17	Petru Florescu	Motopark	48.471
18	Ameya Vaidyanathan	Carlin	49.209
19	Tadasuke Makino	Hitech GP	1'02.943
20	Joey Mawson	Van Amersfoort Racing	3 laps
Ret	Ferdinand Habsburg	Carlin	-
Ret	Guan Yu Zhou	Prema Powerteam	-