Martins goes from zero to hero in F3 opener
FIA FORMULA 3 SAKHIR (BHR) 19-20 MARCH ROUND 1/9
As the highest-placed driver from
2021 staying on for this season, Alpine Academy protege Victor Martins faced big expectations heading into the FIA Formula 3 season opener in Bahrain. The Frenchman certainly met them, claiming a convincing victory in the feature race to take the lead in the standings. That was a strong bounceback from a retirement after colliding with team-mate Gregoire Saucy in Saturday’s sprint race.
Martins is back this season at ART Grand Prix, the team with which he won the 2020 Formula Renault Eurocup title, after his rookie F3 campaign with MP Motorsport. He qualified third behind Franco Colapinto, who earned pole for Van Amersfoort Racing on his and the team’s FIA F3 debut, and Roman Stanek.
Colapinto had a great start to hold the lead from Stanek’s Trident car and Martins. After an early safety car, Martins immediately passed Stanek, who then sustained a right-rear puncture thanks
|to contact from Alexander Smolyar’s front wing exiting Turn 10, sending the Czech to the pits for a new tyre.
Martins’ pass for the lead came on lap 15 of 23. His move on Colapinto at
Turn 1 didn’t quite come off, and he had to brave it out to get past the Argentinian into Turn 4. He then built enough of an advantage to ensure he was well protected from a late-race charge from Arthur Leclerc. The Ferrari junior made an astonishing charge through the field from 13th on the grid, and passed Colapinto on lap 18.
Colapinto crossed the line third, but was demoted to fifth thanks to a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits. That benefited Martins’ ART team-mates Saucy and Juan Manuel Correa, who moved up to third and fourth respectively.
Correa and Smolyar had endured a fierce battle for third on lap eight, with the American emerging in front. Isack Hadjar then got past Smolyar, only to become another to sustain a right-rear puncture as a result of contact with the Russian. Smolyar’s battered car finished eighth, but two penalties for his clashes placed him way down the order.
Leclerc’s team-mates Ollie Bearman and Jak Crawford ended the race in sixth and seventh, after starting from 10th and 20th respectively.
Bearman took victory on track in the sprint race, but the win was handed to Hitech GP’S French Red Bull junior Hadjar after the reigning double Formula 4 champion was penalised 5s for track-limits offences.
Bearman lined up alongside Carlin-run polesitter Zak O’sullivan on the reversed grid, and the Aston Martin Autosport BRDC Award winner held on for four laps before Bearman moved in front. Zane Maloney was the next to demote the fading O’sullivan with a few laps to go, before the Trident-run Barbadian was passed by Hadjar. MP driver Smolyar also got past Maloney to complete the podium behind Hadjar and Bearman.
Maloney, the 2019 British F4 champion, had a disastrous feature race. As his car slowed on the opening lap, Caio Collet was forced to take avoiding action and wrecked his suspension on a kerb, before Maloney was then collected by Francesco Pizzi at Turn 8, causing the early safety car interruption.