F3: Red Bull junior Kari beats Stroll to win

Red Bull junior Niko Kari took his first Formula 3 European Championship race win at Imola after pulling off a superb maneuver on likely champion Lance Stroll.

The 16-year-old Finn's chance came on the second safety-car restart, Kari ducking into the slipstream of Stroll before diving around the outside of the Williams protege into the Tamburello chicane.

Stroll had converted his pole position into the race lead, although the Motopark Dallara-Volkswagen of Kari put the Canadian Prema Powerteam driver under immense pressure in the early stages.

Stroll was out of reach of Kari after the first restart, but the second one was a different matter. "It was a bit risky, but I'm happy with how it turned out," said Kari. "I like the track here – it's quite old-style with a not a lot of runoff. Like a Finnish track, I would say!"

With one lap remaining Stroll was still close to Kari and even feinted a move into Tamburello, but there was no denying the 2015 SMP Formula 4 champion his first F3 victory.

"He's a good racer and he had a chance to win a race," acknowledged Stroll. "I didn't want to take the risk to hold him off – I would have looked a bit silly if I'd crashed."

Further joy for Motopark came with Joel Eriksson's acquisition of the final podium spot from sixth on the grid. The Swedish BMW junior passed Anthoine Hubert for fifth into Tamburello on lap four, then zapped George Russell for fourth at the same spot on the first restart.

Eriksson managed to sweep around the outside of Nick Cassidy for third at Tamburello just before the second safety car, and after the restart he remained close to Stroll until the flag.

Prema driver Cassidy held off a brief challenge from the Hitech GP machine of Russell to claim fourth, with Van Amersfoort Racing man Hubert completing the top six.

There was drama in the lower reaches of the top 10. After the first safety car – caused by Pedro Piquet spinning off at Rivazza – Callum Ilott speared through the gravel at Tamburello while fighting Sergio Sette Camara (who was recovering from a grid penalty) for eighth.

The second safety car was caused when David Beckmann, running sixth, was marooned in the gravel at Tamburello after a clash with Sette Camara.

The upshot was that Motopark's Ferrari junior Guan Yu Zhou emerged on top of a fight with Prema driver Ralf Aron for seventh, with Ben Barnicoat (Hitech) and Mikkel Jensen (Mucke Motorsport) completing the points scorers.

After his disastrous Friday, second-in-points Maximilian Gunther could not make much progress and finished 12th, leaving his deficit to Stroll at 86 points with 125 still available.

Originally on Autosport.com