P. Gonzalez secures first GB3 win amidst multiple retirements

Patricio Gonzalez won his maiden victory in race three | Credit: GB3 official website

VRD Racing driver Patricio Gonzalez won his first GB3 race and got his first podium amidst trademark race three chaos.

This means that Patricio Gonzalez’s team, VRD Racing, have won all three races - a feat not often seen in GB3.

Going back to the start of the race, the Gonzalez brothers locked out the reverse grid front row, and were looking for their first podiums respectively.

This was delayed however for everyone, race control added a second formation lap as Daegen Fairclough’s bad luck spell continued as his Hitech car stalled on the grid. As a result the race was reduced to being 22 minutes long, equivalent to losing two to three racing laps.

When the five lights eventually went out, many had a strong start, but 2024 Formula One Academy champion Abbi Pulling had one of the best. The Rodin Motorsport driver was challenging towards the front of the field, but then dropped back on the exit of Turn 1.

After a long safety car drought, a major incident at Turn 3 brought the first of two out. On the exit of Turn 3, Lucas Fluxa tapped the rear end of Maxim Rehm’s car, which caused the domino effect of the latter bottoming out of a sausage curb and collecting Pulling and Xcel Motorsport’s Rowan Campbell-Pilling. 

At this point there were three retirements, Rehm, Pulling and Campbell-Pilling - with Fairclough not starting the race. 

Rehm’s retirement means that Bedrin now have a three figure lead going into the next half of the season.

The first safety car ended not too much longer after, it was a long period, lasting roughly eight minutes in total. Patricio Gonzalez executed a clean restart, which especially helped the four-car battle for 10th place going on.

This was followed later by another major incident, causing the second and final safety car. Scottish driver Lewis Gilbert got beached in the gravel at Turn 4.

It wasn’t a long safety car period, it went in with only three laps of racing left to go. The race restarted cleanly, but Aurelia Nobels went off a Turn 1 on the restart - although that ended up being the tip of the iceberg after what happened on the final lap.

Kyuho Lee went for a move on Rodrigo Gonzalez around the outside into Turn 4, but tagged the former rear’s right - which caused both of them to be implicated in the incident and not finish on the last lap.

The race subsequently ended with Patricio Gonzalez taking his first ever win and podium in GB3. Followed by Bedrin and Leon Wilson, another driver getting his first podium in the series.

GB3 returns on the first and second of August for round four at Silverstone in three weeks time.