A lights to flag victory for Joel Eriksson secured his position at the top of the standings after the fifth race of the European Formula 3 championship.
The Swedish driver shot away from pole position on the grid and was left unchallenged for the majority of the race.
Lando Norris looked to repeat his race one victory after another disappointing start saw him drop away from second on the grid. With the Monza track lending itself to slip streaming, Norris quickly found his way back up through the field. The Brit took Mick Schumacher for second early in the race and set about cutting into the led Eriksson had built.
Just like yesterday’s race, Norris ate into the gap lap after lap. In the last handful of laps, it looked as if Norris might repeat the move that saw him take victory over Jehan Daruvala yesterday, but the Carlin driver ran out of laps before he could find a way past Eriksson.
Norris could have had a helping hand in closing that gap when Pedro Piquet found himself stranded in the gravel and out of the race early on. A safety car would have destroyed the lead Eriksson had already built up, but the incident was cleared without the need to pause the action.
Schumacher finished the race nine seconds behind Norris and Eriksson, in a lonely third place, as the battle for fourth allowed him to build up a gap.
The battle started with Jake Dennis, Maximilian Gunther, and Callum Ilott, but Van Amersfoort’s Harrison Newey soon joined the fight. A trip up the escape road saw Ilott fall backwards and into the clutches of Daruvala.
The group spent the remainder of the race squabbling for position, with Ferdinand Habsburg later joining the battle after an early trip into the gravel. The racing remained clean until Newey and Dennis made contact. The incident saw the pair fall away and Newey duck into the pits, but it was deemed a racing incident.
Gunther eventually won the battle for fourth, with Habsburg following him across the line. Guan Yu Zhou finished sixth after a battle with Ilott, who took seventh. It was another disappointing finish for the Brit, losing points to his championship rivals. But, with eight rounds of the championship still remaining, there’ll be plenty of time for him to recover.
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