Points for Stenshorne in the Spa F3 Sprint, but rain stopped play on Sunday
Round 8 - Spa-Francorchamps - Report
Hitech TGR’s Martinius Stenshorne boosted his tally by five points in Saturday’s F3 Sprint Race, but at the end of a bright and sunny week at Spa-Francorchamps, torrential rain set in and turned Sunday’s Feature Race into a washout.
The Hitech trio, which included guest driver Freddie Slater, making his Spa F3 debut, and Rookie Gerrard Xie, enjoyed a positive start to the weekend. Martinius qualified in P5, while Freddie was 12th and Gerrard 17th out of the 30-strong field.
The reverse-grid Sprint would see Freddie line up on Pole and his race got off to a dream start as he kept hold of the lead into Turn 1 and defended well against the considerably more seasoned drivers around him.
With the benefit of DRS on Lap 2, Stromsted had the gap to the British driver down to 0.4s and along the Kemmel Straight, the Dane was able to sweep into the lead.
Martinius had started eighth but by Lap 6 he had already put himself into fifth, including a textbook DRS pass on del Pino into Turn 5.
Despite dropping to third by Lap 7, Slater continued to defend well against the key title protagonists behind, but in such a fierce fight for title honours, Martinius was amongst those who managed to pass him on Lap 9.
Gerrard, meanwhile, was steadily gaining places as the lap count fell and had moved into P14 by Lap 4. Much like Monaco, the spectacular and challenging Spa-Francorchamps circuit is one where the Chinese driver has found his F3 groove, having scored a victory and a podium here in other series.
In the closing stages of the race, the fight at the front intensified and Martinius, who was running as high as fourth, gradually dropped three places to finish seventh. Freddie took the chequered flag in P10 but following the application of post-race penalties for track limits, he dropped down to P26 in the classification.
Gerrard’s P11 is his best result of the season and underlines the Rookie’s determination to end his debut season of F3 on a high note.
Sunday’s Feature Race was short-lived after torrential rain led to two separate stoppages before ultimately being red-flagged. Martinius was classified fifth, Freddie tenth and Gerrard 13th, but with no racing laps completed, there were no points awarded, in line with the FIA Formula 3 Sporting Regulations.
The series now heads to Budapest for the penultimate round at the Hungaroring on 1-3 August.
Results
Qualifying
- Martinius Stenshorne - P5
- Freddie Slater - P12
- Gerrard Xie - P17
Sprint Race
- Martinius Stenshorne - P7
- Gerrard Xie - P11
- Freddie Slater - P26
Feature Race
- Race red-flagged due to wet conditions - final classification with no points awarded
- Martinius Stenshorne - P5
- Freddie Slater - P10
- Gerrard Xie - P13