Third season win for Raffaele Marciello…

Raffaele Marciello (Prema Powerteam) travelled home from Silverstone in the UK with victory in the sixth season round of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship under his belt. At the 5.891 kilometres long Formula 1 track, the Italian beat Felix Rosenqvist (kfzteile24 Mücke Motorsport) in a thrilling battle. The Swede came home second, Alex Lynn (Prema Powerteam) crossed the finish line in third place. With his third victory of the season, Marciello extended his lead in the drivers’ standings to 36.5 points, Rosenqvist is second.

At the start, Felix Rosenqvist stormed into the lead, followed by Alex Lynn and Raffaele Marciello. Some drivers slid off the damp track, which was the reason for the safety car to be deployed for a while. Racing resumed at the start of lap five and on the first kilometres already, Marciello overtook his team-mate Lynn. A few laps later, the Italian had also closed the gap to race leader Rosenqvist and started a close battle with the Mücke driver over several laps. After a few unsuccessful attempts, the protégé of the Ferrari Driver Academy finally managed to overtake the Swede on lap 15.

There was plenty of action behind the two front runners. British driver William Buller (ThreeBond with T-Sport) had to defend his position almost for the entire duration of the race: in the opening stages against Lucas Wolf (URD Rennsport), who did particularly well in the early phase of the race, and then for a long time against his compatriot Jordan King (Carlin). Buller, one of only two drivers in the field to use the ThreeBond Nissan engine, eventually took the chequered flag in fifth place behind Félix Serrallés (Fortec Motorsports). Wolf, on the other hand, dropped back further and further down the order with his rain tyres as the track dried out in the second half of the race and finished 17th.

Classified sixth after 16 laps, Formula 3 novice Jordan King was the third-best Brit behind Alex Lynn and William Buller. Behind him, Lucas Auer (Prema Powerteam) overtook the fourth-best Brit Jann Mardenborough (Carlin) on the final lap to finish seventh. Harry Tincknell (Carlin) and Nicholas Latifi (Carlin) rounded out the top ten.

Raffaele Marciello (Prema Powerteam)
“I was third at the start, but I was able to overtake Alex soon after the safety car phase to move up into second place. Then, I tried to close up to Felix, which I did. The battle for victory with him was tough and overtaking him wasn’t easy. Only when he made a mistake, I was able to get past.”

Felix Rosenqvist (kfzteile24 Mücke Motorsport)
“Raffaele put me under massive pressure and I tried to do everything to bring first place home. I had the impression that I was faster at a damp track, but the more it dried out, the better Raffaele got. With two laps remaining, I made a slight mistake and I lost the lead.”

Alex Lynn (Prema Powerteam)
“To be honest, I am disappointed, because when starting from pole, you want more than third place. Raffaele, Felix and I were clearly faster than the rest of the field, but unfortulately, I was slightly slower than Raffaele and Felix.”