F3: Marty wins Monaco sprint on Saturday

José-Maria Martí won the Formula 3 sprint in Monaco on Saturday. Together with him, Leonardo Fornaroli and Grégoire Sosi climbed on stage in the prince’s coffin.

According to the results of Friday’s qualifying, Sosi was due to start from pole in the sprint, but the stewards penalized him with the loss of three positions for not slowing under the yellow flags. Marie Boya also lost three positions off the start because she blocked Zach O’Sullivan in qualifying. For example, Jose Maria Marti started Saturday’s Formula 3 race from pole position.

At the start Marty kept his position, Sosi got ahead of Barnard and moved up to third place. Johnny Edgar, who started 16th, hit the barrier in turn one after contact with Oliver Goethe. The stewards recognized the incident as a racing incident.

A safety car was brought onto the track to allow marshals to evacuate the MP Motorsport driver’s car. Garcia, Yini, Faria and Boya damaged their cars on the first lap, but managed to make it to the pits. Of these four, only Alejandro Garcia and Hunter Yini continued the race.

The race resumed on the sixth lap of twenty-three. At the restart the top three held their position and in the hairpin Franco Colapinto overtook Taylor Barnard in the battle for fourth. At the back of the tunnel entrance, after a struggle with Goethe, Tommy Smith hit the guardrail with his left wheel, but was able to continue the race in twentieth. For this incident, Goethe received a 10-second penalty.

The most intense fight on the track was for tenth place – Paul Aron held off the attacks of Gabriele Mini, who could not even do anything with the Prema racer on a narrow city circuit thanks to DRS.

In the sixteenth round, Nikola Tsolov overtook Nikita Bedrin in a hairpin battle for 14th place in a contact fight.

Jose-Maria Marti confidently crossed the finish line first, eight seconds ahead of Leonardo Fornaroli. For the Campos rider, this victory was the second of the season after the success in Saturday’s race in Bahrain.

Thanks to second place, the 18-year-old Italian Fornaroli climbed to the podium for the first time in Formula 3. Grégoire Sosi’s third place allowed him to close the gap to 17 points behind championship leader Bortoleto, who finished sixth. Marty moved up to third in the individual standings, 28 points behind first place.

The best lap of the race was set by Hugh Barter, who finished 25th. Nikita Bedrin finished the sprint in 15th place.