F3: Alexander Smolyar won the first win of the season

Alexander Smolyar won the Formula 3 race in Hungary on Sunday. For the Russian driver of the MP Motorsport team, the win was the first of the season and the third in his career. Zane Maloney and Oliver Berman took the podium with him.

It was pouring rain on the Hungaroring on Sunday morning, but before the start of the Formula 3 race, the rain stopped, but the track remained wet and everyone rode to the grid on wet tires. Arthur Leclerc, who finished fourth in qualifying, lost five positions at the start due to a collision in Saturday’s race with Jack Crawford.

Alexander Smolyar started from pole and maintained the lead, although he was attacked by Zane Maloney and Oliver Berman in the second corner. David Vidales got off to a good start and moved up from 16th to ninth.

Jack Crawford regained two positions and moved up to fourth, Grégoire Sosi dropped to seventh. Isaac Hajjar lost his positions and rolled back from tenth to nineteenth place at the start.

On the second lap, Oliver Goethe stopped on track due to problems with his car, resulting in short yellow flags, but Goethe was able to continue after that.

Feeling confident on the wet track, Smolyar was gaining about a second per lap from the pack – after four laps his lead over Maloney was 4.8 seconds. Laszlo Toth returned to the pit lane, where he stopped.

On lap eight, after a long battle, Arthur Leclerc overtook Vidales and moved up to ninth place. After Leclerc chased Chao Collet, he showed the best lap of the race. After that, the situation in the top ten stabilized for a few laps. In the battle for eleventh place, Roman Stanek overtook Rhys Ushijima.

On lap fifteen, Leclerc broke off Saturday’s race winner, Chao Collet, to move up to eighth. On the same lap, Francesco Pizzi entered the pits – the mechanics swapped his wet tires for slicks. The next round was followed by Correa, Edgar, Marty and O’Sullivan. Roman Stanek passed Vidales for tenth place.

In the seventeenth lap, Leclerc won another position, overtaking Grégoire Saucy. On the nineteenth lap Arthur moved up to sixth and overtook Victor Marten.

At this point the track was dry enough and the riders who switched to slicks went seven seconds faster than the leaders. Seeing this, championship leader Hajjar, who rode outside the top ten, also decided to change his wet tires. Rafael Villagomez was given a five-second penalty for crossing the track.

On lap twenty-second, Oliver Goethe spun into the first corner on slicks, but the Campos driver was able to continue. In the closing laps O’Sullivan’s car started to get slippery – not only did he have the best lap, but he was ten seconds faster than the pack and broke through to eighth on the final lap. After Zach on slicks, Juan Manuel Correa also regained positions. As a result, Sullivan rose to fourth and Correa to sixth.

Alexander Smolyar confidently took the race to victory, leading by five and a half seconds ahead of Zane Maloney and Oliver Berman at the finish.

Victor Martin finished tenth, equaling championship leader Isaac Hadjar – now both French riders have 104 points. The next Formula 3 race will take place at the Belgian circuit of Spa from August 26-28.