Paul Aron takes first Formula 3 victory

Estonian Prema team driver Paul Aron won the Formula 3 sprint in Spielberg, Austria, on Saturday. He was joined on stage by Gabriele Mini and Chao Collet.

At the start of the first race of the weekend, the rain, which had started overnight, did not stop, so the warm-up lap was driven behind the safety car. Two laps later, Berndt Maylander turned into the pit lane, the drivers lined up on the grid and started from one spot.

Pole holder José-Maria Martí kept the lead. Oliver Goethe, who occupied fourth position, remained in place, but was then still able to start, but rolled back well past twenty. On the first lap, Caylen overtook Frederic Gabriele Mini for second.

Alejandro Garcia damaged the car after contact with Hunter Yini, flew into the gravel, slowly returned to the pits and retired.

On lap two at turn three, Mini rolled back outside the top three and missed Paul Aron’s attack. The battle on the wet track continued throughout the pack – championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto overtook Dino Beganovich in the battle for twelfth, Franco Colapinto in the battle for seventh ahead of Christian Mansell.

At the end of the fifth lap coming out of the final corner, Hugh Barter spun onto the curb. The Campos rider lost ground but was still able to continue the race. Mansell continued to lose places and on lap seven he dropped back to 11th position. In the eighth round, Christian missed Bortoleto after stubborn resistance.

On the ninth lap, Frederik dropped from second to fourth, missing Aron and Mini. Aron found himself on an empty track and started to regain the gap on the leading Marty within a second.

On the tenth lap Franco Colapinto, confident in 7th place, made a braking mistake in turn 4, went into the gravel and missed his rivals. The MP Motorsport driver was able to continue the race, but in 19th place.

Yellow flags appeared on the eleventh lap and the safety car came out on track. The reason was the incident in the fourth corner – Oliver Gray drove into Rafael Villagomez’s car. The impact was not very strong, but both cars were damaged, so the race could not continue.

The safety car left the track at the end of the thirteenth lap. At the restart, Marty confidently held onto the lead. In the top ten, Dino Beganovich moved into ninth ahead of Luke Browning, while Johnny Edgar overtook Sebastian Monotoya for seventh.

On lap sixteen, Zach O’Sullivan overtook Frederik into turn three for fifth. Kaylen was overtaken by Edgar at the exit of turn six. On the next lap, Bortoleto moved up to tenth, ahead of Browning.

On lap eighteen Paul Aron attacked Marty for the lead, Mini took advantage of this and into the third corner the top three were running side by side. Aron had the most advantageous position and took the lead. Mini also moved up to second position and overtook Marty.

In the nineteenth lap, Marty lost his spot on the podium, missing Chao Collet. On the final lap, the Campos driver dropped back to fifth, behind O’Sullivan and Edgar.

Once on an empty track, Paul Aron showed the best lap and confidently took the race to his first career win. This result moved him up to fourth place in the individual standings, tied on points with Gabriele Mini. Mini himself took the podium for the third time, while Chao Collet repeated his best result of the season.

Championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto finished tenth. Nikita Bedrin crossed the finish line in seventeenth place.