F3: Zach O’Sullivan wins sprint Barcelona

Zach O’Sullivan won the Formula 3 sprint in Barcelona on Saturday. For the Prema rider, this win was the second of the season and his career after success in Saturday’s race in Melbourne.

Pole holder O’Sullivan kept the lead, although Luke Browning attacked him hard into the first corner. Grégoire Sosi was unable to overtake Leonardo Fornaroli in the battle for third place, but Paul Aron stayed ahead of Marie Boyu in the battle for fifth place. In the course of the circle, Boya lost two more positions, missing Sebastian Montoya and Gabriel Bortoleto.

In turn nine, Ido Cohen flew into the gravel and hit the protective barrier. Racer Rodin Carlin was not injured and climbed out of the cockpit under his own power. A safety car drove onto the track so marshals evacuated his car and repaired the barrier.

While the safety car was on the track, Rafael Villagomez pitted to change the front wing before returning to the track last. Hugh Barter was handed a 5-second penalty for falsely re-entering the track after a first corner crash.

The race resumed on the fifth lap of twenty-one. The first seven held their position and Boya lost another place – in the first corner he was overtaken by Franco Colapinto. Out front, O’Sullivan set the best lap in an attempt to create a lead over the pack.

Gabriele Mini, who started eighteenth, broke through to twelfth on lap seven. On the tenth lap, Browning made an attempt to overtake O’Sullivan into the first turn, but Zach deflected the charge. Luke didn’t give up and made another attempt on the next lap, but again the Prema driver kept the lead.

On lap 12, José-Maria Martí went wide out of turn nine and lost speed on the exit. Gabriele Mini took advantage of this and won back the position, moving up to the eleventh line.

Grégoire Saucy made a mistake on the thirteenth lap exiting the last corner. Paul Aron took advantage of this on the start straight and overtook the ART driver due to his increased speed. At the first corner, Gregoire attempted a counter-attack but to no avail, which Montoya and Bortoleto took advantage of by overtaking Sosi.

On the next lap, Montoya attacked Aron at the first corner but went off track, leading to an active change of position in the top ten. Sebastian’s car had a puncture in the right front wheel and he went to the pits to get a new tyre.

There was also a flat tire at Dino Beganovich, which flew into the gravel in turn ten because of him. This ended the race for him. On the following lap at turn 2, Mini and Mansell made contact which ended in a broken rear right suspension of the Campos driver’s car. The safety car took to the road.

The top ten before the restart was as follows: O’Sullivan-Browning-Fornaroli-Bortoleto-Aron-Colapinto-Boya-Suck-Mini Marty.

The race resumed with three laps to go. Fornaroli tried to attack Browning in the first corner but to no avail. On lap 2, Mini recovered another position by overtaking Sosi, but on the next lap Gabriele received a 10-second penalty for colliding with Mansell and dropped to 21st in the final standings.

Zach O’Sullivan confidently took the race to victory. Together with him, Luke Browning and Leonardo Fornaroli took the stage.

The fourth Bortoleto against the background of the departure of the nearest rival Mini and the eighth place Sosi, who takes third place in the championship, enabled Gabriel to further strengthen the leadership in the individual standings. Now Bortoleto is 24 points ahead of Mini and 31 points ahead of Grégoire Sosi.

Nikita Bedrin finished twelfth, but thanks to a penalty kick, Mini moved up to eleventh place in the protocol. For driver Jenzer, this result was the best in his career.