F3 AUSTRALIA: BORTOLETO WINS BACK-TO-BACK FEATURE RACES

driver Bortoleto didn’t put a wheel wrong over the course of the 23-lap race, holding off ART man Saucy to make it back-to-back feature race victories by 0.596 seconds.

Alpine junior Gabriele Mini led home a long train of battling cars to take the final podium spot for Hitech.

Bortoleto maintained the lead from Saucy and Mini at the start on a relatively calm opening lap of the race, but it wasn’t long before the safety car made its first appearance of the morning owing to two separate incidents.

driver picked up a puncture from contact with Luke Browning exiting Turn 3 and subsequently crashed at Turn 5.

Later round the lap, Mari Boya was involved in a scary incident at the fast Turn 9-10 complex as he launched off the rear wheel of Nikola Tsolov into the gravel and hit the barriers, although Boya was reportedly able to exit his MP car unaided.

, produced the second and final caution of the race just after half-distance.

Gabriel Bortoleto, Gregoire Saucy & Gabriele Mini Podium

Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Saucy continued to apply the pressure on Bortoleto but never got close enough to attempt an overtake, falling short of the win by half a second.

Mini was three seconds behind in third, leading home Fornaroli, sprint race winner Zak O’Sullivan (Prema) and Browning (Hitech), who faces a post-race investigation for his early contact with Colapinto.

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(Jenzer).

, second in the points heading to Melbourne, finished down in 22nd after picking up a front-right puncture and pitting for a replacement wheel.

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With Goethe failing to score all weekend, Bortoleto now leads the championship by 20 points from Saucy, with Beganovic third, 26 off the leader.

F3 Australia - feature race results (23 laps):

ClaDriverTeamGapInterval                       
1Gabriel Bortoleto Trident
2 Gregoire Saucy ART Grand Prix 0.596 0.596
3Gabriele MinìHitech Pulse-Eight 3.032 2.436
4Leonardo Fornaroli Trident 3.216 0.184
5 Zak O'Sullivan Prema Powerteam 3.564 0.348
6Luke BrowningHitech Pulse-Eight 4.191 0.627
7Paul Aron Prema Powerteam 4.393 0.202
8Dino Beganovic Prema Powerteam 8.557 4.164
9Pepe Martí Campos Racing 8.738 0.181
10Taylor Barnard Jenzer Motorsport 13.589 4.851
11Christian Mansell Campos Racing 14.356 0.767
12 Jonny Edgar MP Motorsport 14.928 0.572
13Tommy Smith Van Amersfoort Racing 15.582 0.654
14Oliver GrayRodin Carlin 18.766 3.184
15Hugh Barter Campos Racing 19.034 0.268
16 Caio Collet Van Amersfoort Racing 19.426 0.392
17 Hunter Yeany Rodin Carlin 19.645 0.219
18 Sophia Flörsch PHM Racing by Charouz 23.606 3.961
19 Rafael Villagomez Van Amersfoort Racing 28.676 5.070
20 Alex Garcia Jenzer Motorsport 30.035 1.359
21Nikola Tsolov ART Grand Prix 30.064 0.029
22Oliver Goethe Trident 56.084 26.020
23Nikita Bedrin Jenzer Motorsport 1 Lap 1 Lap
Ido Cohen Rodin Carlin
Roberto FariaPHM Racing by Charouz
Piotr WiśnickiPHM Racing by Charouz
Kaylen Frederick ART Grand Prix
Franco Colapinto MP Motorsport
Mari Boya MP Motorsport
Sebastian Montoya Hitech Pulse-Eight
View full results

2023-04-02T00:24:10Z dg43tfdfdgfd