Written by Sean McKean
In the Sakhir feature race, Hitech’s Luke Browning took his maiden Formula 3 victory. He held off late charges from ART’s Christian Mansell with MP’s Tim Tramnitz rounding out the podium.
Off the start, polesitter Dino Beganovic got a poor start due to suspected clutch issues, resulting in the Prema driver dropping to the tail of the field immediately. This allowed Browning to cruise into the lead by turn one, but the battle behind was a different story. Because of the stall, Prema’s Gabriele Minì was slow off the line as well, allowing Trident’s Sami Meguetounif to take second and Tramnitz third. Mansell held fourth off the line, but on lap three, the Australian was able to take third from Tramnitz.
Two laps later, Mansell got by Meguetounif for second, now beginning his charge to Browning up front. The battle between the two allowed Tramnitz to catch up, putting pressure on Meguetounif briefly for third. All of this battling from second to fourth allowed Browning to build up a 1.2-second gap, breaking DRS behind.
As the race wound down to the final ten laps, Trident’s Santiago Ramos was putting pressure on Tramnitz from fifth, but a wide moment put him under pressure from Minì behind. Though he held onto position, the Mexican lost DRS to Tramnitz ahead.
Meguetounif had also been applying pressure to Mansell ahead, but a mistake from the Frenchman allowed Tramnitz behind to take third place in turn one.
Despite his best efforts, Mansell was not able to close the gap to the Briton ahead, as Luke Browning cruised to his first FIA Formula 3 victory. ART’s Christian Mansell followed suit with Tim Tramnitz barely edging out Sami Meguetounif. Santiago Ramos and Gabriele Minì followed in fifth and sixth. Fornaroli scored points in seventh with sprint race winner Arvid Lindblad finishing eighth. Alex Dunne and Oliver Goethe finished out the points-paying positions.
After the first weekend of the Formula 3 season, the standings look as follows:
Drivers':
Luke Browning (Hitech) - 25 points
Tim Tramnitz (MP) - 21 points
Christian Mansell (ART) - 18 points
Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident) - 15 points
Arvid Lindblad (Prema) - 14 points
Teams':
Trident - 38 points
ART - 35 points
Prema - 28 points
Hitech - 25 points
MP - 23 points