Doohan reinvigorates championship bid with second F3 win at Spa

Jack Doohan, who came into the Belgian Grand Prix weekend trailing championship leader Dennis Hauger by 63 points, has slashed that gap to 25 with his second victory at Spa.

The Red Bull junior driver had been fastest during Friday qualifying, guaranteeing him pole for Sunday’s race and then despite a relatively anonymous Saturday morning race, managed to secure the partially-reversed grid pole for the afternoon and take a lights-to-flag victory. Now having taken another victory, despite a strong challenge from Victor Martins, Doohan has cut the points gap from 63 to 25 points, keeping the championship fight alive into F3’s final two rounds at Zandvoort next week and the Circuit of the Americas in October.

The final F3 race of the weekend started as the others had, in wet conditions and with poor visibility. This time cars started behind the Safety Car, with multiple laps being taken out of the race distance by repeated formation circulations.

When the race finally got underway, with 14 laps to go on full wet tyres, Doohan got away in the lead but Victor Martins stayed in hot pursuit from the very start of the race. Martins made a move around Pouhon for the lead on lap five but went off-track and was told by his team to return the position.

The final F3 race of the weekend was, despite the wet conditions, incident-free. The only significant contact was on lap three, between Matteo Nannini and Rafael Villagomez, resulting in a puncture for Nannini and ultimately a fairly anonymous retirement for Villagomez.

Doohan and Martins continued duelling, Doohan being forced to defend for every lap of the race. Martins told his team “I swear I will win this one” but it was not to be.

Martins and Hauger traded fastest lap throughout the race, Hauger having once again started outside the points after a weekend where his remarkable form through the first part of the season seemed to deserted him. He did, once again, put together a convincing charge through the field to make it up to eighth, taking the edge off the damage Doohan was able to do to his points lead.

Doohan took the flag, Martins behind him and with Aleksandr Smolyar completing the podium. Hauger came in behind Caio Collet, Clement Novalak, Frederik Vesti and Logan Sargeant, who he closed on rapidly after passing David Schumacher. Arthur Leclerc took 10th as Prema ended a weekend win-less for the first time this year.

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Formula 3 Belgium race three results

Position	Car	Driver	Team
1	4	Jack Doohan	Trident
2	17	Victor Martins	MP
3	8	Alexander Smolyar	ART
4	18	Caio Collet	MP
5	5	Clement Novalak	Trident
6	7	Frederik Vesti	ART
7	29	Logan Sargeant	Charouz
8	1	Dennis Hauger	Prema
9	6	David Schumacher	Trident
10	2	Arthur Leclerc	Prema
11	3	Olli Caldwell	Prema
12	10	Jak Crawford	Hitech
13	11	Ayumu Iwasa	Hitech
14	21	Lorenzo Colombo	Campos
15	12	Roman Stanek	Hitech
16	27	Johnathan Hoggard	Jenzer
17	15	Oliver Rasmussen	HWA
18	26	Calan Williams	Jenzer
19	19	Tijmen van der Helm	MP
20	25	Jonny Edgar	Carlin
21	23	Ido Cohen	Carlin
22	9	Juan Manuel Correa	ART
23	20	Laszlo Toth	Campos
24	31	Zdenek Chovanec	Charouz
25	28	Filip-Ioan Ugran	Jenzer
26	14	Matteo Nannini	HWA
27	22	Amaury Cordeel	Campos
28	30	Hunter Yeany	Charouz
29	16	Rafael Villagomez	HWA

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