F3 - Joel Eriksson wins, battle for the title remains open

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At the start, Joel Eriksson already made it clear that he wanted to score his second race win of the day. He took the lead from Lando Norris, but wasn’t able to pull clear from the charging Brit. Norris tried everything to overtake the Swede, but didn’t succeed. On lap 19, the McLaren junior driver ran into the rear of the BMW protégé’s car and lost the right front wing endplate of his car as a result of the contact. Following that incident, he had to let Eriksson pull away, after which the Swede drove an undisputed victory home.

Behind Eriksson, Norris had to defend his second place in the closing stages against Ralf Aron (Hitech Grand Prix), until the two young drivers collided and retired on the final lap. Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin) was second across the line, but the only Austrian in the field previously had exceeded the track limits which resulted in a five second time penalty. Thus, second place went to Nikita Mazepin and third to Tadasuke Makino. All that, only an unsatisfying fourth place was left for Habsburg.

After the action-packed final stage, Maximilian Günther was classified fourth which brought the German ten points. Thus, he reduced his gap to championship leader Lando Norris to 72 points and therefore he still has a mathematical chance of winning the FIA Formula 3 European Championship title. Jehan Daruvala (Carlin), Joey Mawson (Van Amersfoort Racing), Mick Schumacher (Prema Powerteam), David Beckmann (Motopark) and Marino Sato (Motopark) rounded out the top ten. For the Japanese rookie driver, this was his first point for the FIA Formula 3 European Championship drivers’ standings.

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SEASON 2017SportCircuit1SportF3 European ChampionshipCircuitF3SEASON 2017F3Formula 3Race of Spielberg F301Sunday, September 24, 2017 - 9:15pmSunday, September 24, 2017 - 9:15pm

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