Oscar Piastri Dominates Spanish Race Two to cut Championship Deficit

Oscar Piastri dominated the second F3 race of Spanish Grand Prix weekend to take victory, which in turn reduced his championship deficit to Logan Sargeant. 

Piastri got a strong start from fifth to quickly work his way up to second where he got the switchback on Alex Peroni into Turn Three to sweep through into the lead, from which he went on to clinch victory despite overcoming two safety car restarts. 

Piastri consequently reduced a 12 point deficit  to Sargeant down to just a single point heading into the final triple header of Spa, Monza and Mugello. 

Speaking post-race on his second win of season, Piastri said; “I got a mega start and got the lead in the first few corners. That was really positive because that’s sort of where I’ve been playing a bit weak so far this year.” 

Peroni meanwhile lost second to pole-sitter, Matteo Nannini but managed to regain the position with an inside move into Turn One on lap 11, of which the top three were set in stone. 

Richard Verschoor had to settle for fourth ahead of Logan Sargeant and Theo Pourchaire, with Liam Lawson, Enzo Fittipaldi, David Beckmann and Jake Hughes rounding out the top ten finishers. 

Embed from Getty Images

Nannini suffered wheelspin at the start which forced him to cut across and force Verschoor towards the pit exit lane, thereby allowing Peroni to sweep round the outside of Turn One to take the lead. 

Peroni’s lead however proved short-lived as Piastri managed to get switchback out of Turn Two and sweep past the Australian driver to take the lead, shortly before the safety car was deployed after Max Fewtrell and Olli Caldwell got beached in the gravel at Turn Two. 

Fewtrell and Caldwell had swerved to avoid colliding with Leonardo Pulcini’s spinning Carlin which had been hit by Dennis Hauger, sending the British pair into the gravel to end their races prematurely. 

Once the safety car pitted at end of lap five, Piastri got a solid restart to lead Nannini and soon built a gap as the Italian fell into Peroni’s clutches and was passed at Turn One on lap 11 with an inside move from the Aussie. 

From that point onwards, the top ten order was set in stone to the flag despite Frederico Malvestiti causing another safety car on lap 15, having stuck his car in the gravel at Turn Five but his car was quickly removed and racing resumed on lap 17. 

Further down the order, Bent Viscaal recovered from last position to finish 20th and just ahead of Frederik Vesti of whom he had shared the last row on the grid with. 

 

Race Results

Position	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Oscar Piastri	Prema	22	39m 52.928
2	Alex Peroni	Campos	22	+ 1.176
3	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer	22	+ 2.028
4	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	22	+ 2.568
5	Logan Sargeant	Prema	22	+ 3.002
6	Theo Pourchaire	ART GP	22	+ 3.910
7	Liam Lawson	Hitech GP	22	+ 4.823
8	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab	22	+ 5.365
9	David Beckmann	Trident	22	+ 5.878
10	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	22	+ 6.613
11	Clement Novalak	Carlin	22	+ 7.216
12	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART GP	22	+ 7.752
13	Sebastian Fernandez	ART GP	22	+ 11.107
14	Calan Williams	Jenzer	22	+ 12.368
15	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab	22	+ 13.139
16	Lirim Zendeli	Trident	22	+ 13.630
17	Cameron Das	Carlin	22	+ 14.411
18	Igor Fraga	Charouz	22	+ 15.127
19	Roman Stanek	Charouz	22	+ 15.677
20	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	22	+ 16.109
21	Frederik Vesti	Prema	22	+18.950
22	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport	22	+ 20.839
23	Sophia Floersch	Campos	22	+ 23.092
24	Leonardo Pulcini	Carlin	22	+ 33.108
25	David Schumacher	Charouz	22	+ 1m 24.905
26	Dennis Hauger	Hitech GP	22	+ 3 Laps
27	Frederico Malvestiti	Jenzer
28	Alessio Deledda	Campos
29	Max Fewtrell	Hitech GP	0	Collision
30	Olli Caldwell	Trident	0	Collision