Round Six – Hungary – Sport Grill

Roundup of a dramatic sixth round of 2022 F3 season in Hungary as the title battle delivered more twists. 

Victor Martins entered this round as championship leader but a weather-affected weekend blew the title fight wide open, with the top five drivers now split by 24 points at conclusion of the weekend with three rounds left of the campaign.

Now, here is a full roundup of all the F3 action around the Hungaroring.

Practice

Van Amersfoort Racing’s (VAR) France Colapinto was the first driver out on track but Campos’ Pepe Marti and David Vidales traded fastest laps in the opening stages, with the latter winning out with 1m 36.093 after Marti had a 1m 35.224 deleted for exceeding track limits in the 11th minute.

Track conditions soon ramped up as Juan Manuel Correa, Gregoire Saucy, Zak O’Sullivan and Alexander Smolyar went top, with O’Sullivan seeing his time deleted for exceeding track limits as stewards adopted a tough stance throughout Practice.

Smolyar consequently led with 1m 34.00 but got displaced in the 17th minute by his MP Motorsport teammate – Kush Maini, who was then immediately displaced by ART GP’s Victor Martins who was then displaced by O’Sullivan, Roman Stanek and Smolyar.

At the half-way mark of the session, Smolyar sat top with 1m 33.282 ahead of Stanek and O’Sullivan.

Track conditions then once again ramped up another gear in the closing minutes and PREMA’s Jak Crawford finished quickest on 1m 32.473 ahead of Trident’s Zane Maloney, with Arthur Leclerc, Isack Hadjar and Caio Collet rounding out the top five drivers.

Qualifying

Like in Practice, Colapinto was first out on track but the opening stints threw up a mixture of strategies as some drivers bailed out of their flying laps, whilst others had lap times deleted with only 20 drivers ultimately setting a lap time on the first run.

Out of those who completed a lap in the opening half of the session, Collet emerged quickest with 1m 33.541 ahead of Hadjar and Martins.

Those who bailed out of their opening laps including all three PREMA drivers ventured out in the traditional gap period, alongside some of those who had made quick stops for set-up tweaks, which led Smolyar to go on provisional pole with 1m 32.838 ahead of Oliver Bearman and Leclerc.

The red flag however came out with three minutes and two seconds left on the clock after O’Sullivan’s car broke down on the main straight, with the session resuming seven minutes later with a crazy scrap for track position to post a final flier.

As the checkered flag fell, Smolyar clung onto pole as he further lowered his pole time to 1m 32.740 whilst Zane Maloney improved to second ahead of Bearman and Leclerc, who will both share the second row for PREMA in the Feature Race.

Gregoire Saucy achieved his best Qualifying result since the opening two rounds as he qualified fifth ahead of Maini, Crawford, Martins, Collet, Hadjar, Colapinto and F3 debutant, Oliver Goethe who claimed reverse-pole for the Sprint Race.

Sprint Race

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A heavy rain shower shortly before the race start left the Hungaroring track surface in damp conditions, which led to stewards to run two formation laps behind the Safety Car before Goethe led a rolling start.

He, Colapinto and Hadjar however ran wide out of the final corner on the proper race start but Colapinto got enough momentum to pass the debutant into the first corner to claim the lead.

Goethe however lost two further positions to slip to fourth behind Collet and Hadjar when the Safety Car was deployed, following a race-ending spin for Vidales at Turn 4.

The race resumed on Lap 4 as Collet swept round the outside of Turn 1 to take second from Hadjar whilst Crawford and Maini further demoted Goethe, who eventually settled into 10th position following a further loss of positions.

Lap 5 however saw a second Safety Car deployed after Carlin’s Brad Benavides locked up at Turn 1 and spun Jenzer’s Ido Cohen, with both drivers eventually eliminated due to their incident.

Once the Safety Car pitted at the end of Lap 7, Hadjar briefly regained second on the restart but was soon beaten by Collet, whilst Crawford cleared Martins for fifth and Smolyar was forced wide at Turn 6 by Saucy.

Martins then conceded sixth to Leclerc a lap later, which enabled the Monegasque to battle Crawford until the end of the race.

Up front, Colapinto fought off Collet until he ran wide at Turn 2 on Lap 10, which unleashed the Brazilian into the lead and eventually to his maiden F3 win in his second season in the category.

Colapinto then settled for second ahead of Hadjar who eventually suffered a wide moment at the very same corner on Lap 16, which put Maini up to third ahead of Crawford as Leclerc then demoted the Frenchman to sixth at Turn 12 on that same lap.

The top ten thereafter seemed set across the last two laps until Leclerc tried an inside move on Crawford on the final lap at Turn 12, which sent the American spinning and Leclerc ran wide at the next corner during which he collected Martins.

Martins though was able to continue but Leclerc’s actions allowed Bearman through into fifth ahead of Martins, which meant that Hadjar claimed the championship lead by a single point with 104 points to Martins’ 103 points.

Up front, Collet cruised home ahead of Colapinto and Maini as Hadjar benefitted from Crawford and Leclerc’s collision to finish fourth, ahead of Bearman, Martins, Saucy, Goethe, Stanek and Maloney.

Post-race, Leclerc and Benavides both received five place grid penalties for causing collisions with Crawford and Cohen respectively, meaning that Leclerc slipped to ninth for the Feature Race grid and Benavides started at the back.

Feature Race

Overnight rain left the Hungaroring in damp conditions as the F3 Feature Race began, with Smolyar leading Maloney and Bearman, whilst Crawford jumped up to fourth ahead of Maini as the entire field began the race on wet tyres.

Hadjar meanwhile was forced wide at Turn 2 as several cars ahead of him ran wide, with the Frenchman unable to recover to the points as he eventually finished 18th at the checkered flag.

Up front, Smolyar quickly built a consistent gap of around 4s to Maloney and Bearman who scrapped throughout the race over second.

Vidales meanwhile initially worked his way to eighth by the end of the second lap, whilst his Campos teammate – Goethe suffered the first of two spins.

Leclerc meanwhile slipped to 11th but slowly carved his way up the order to sixth by the end of Lap 19 as the order largely sat stable with little overtaking, with drivers focused instead on managing tyre degradation.

Few drivers though gambled on slick tyres mid-race with Juan Manuel Correa amongst the first batch of drivers to take that risk, which saw the race eventually swing in favour of the risk takers as the track got drier and those on wet tyres began to lose pace.

Up at the front, Smolyar cruised to his third F3 victory which lifted the Russian up to seventh in the championship.

Maloney fought off Bearman to finish second at the checkered flag by 0.025s ahead of O’Sullivan who stormed through the field on slick tyres to take the point for fastest lap as well as fourth ahead of Crawford, Manuel Correa, Maini, Leclerc, Collet and Martins.

In the driver standings, Hadjar now leads Martins on countback of three wins to Martins’ two as they sit on 104 points apiece, with Leclerc sat nine further points back in third ahead of Crawford and Bearman who round out the top five on 80 points apiece with three rounds left of this season.

F3 will now take its summer break and return across weekend of 26-28 August at Spa Francorchamps in the first of a triple-headed finale, followed by trips to Zandvoort, Netherlands, and Monza, Italy in early September.