Aleksandr Smolyar Dominates 2021 Spanish F3 Race One

ART GP’s Aleksandr Smolyar clinched his maiden Formula Three victory in the season-opening Spanish Race One, ahead of Clement Novalak and Caio Collet. 

Smolyar made a late move up the inside of pole-sitter Jonny Edgar into Turn One  to snatch the lead, which he carefully controlled despite a late charge from Clement Novalak until Oliver Rasmussen crashed at Turn 16 on lap 18.

Rasmussen’s crash consequently brought out the safety car for the last three laps as Smolyar held on to cruise to the checkered flag ahead of Novalak as MP Motorsport’s Caio Collett completed the podium in third.

Charouz’s Logan Sargeant finished fourth ahead of Edgar, Olli Caldwell, Frederik Vesti, Dennis Hauger, Victor Martins and Matteo Nannini, with David Schumacher finishing 11th ahead of Enzo Fittipaldi who claimed reverse pole for the second reverse race.

Embed from Getty Images

Carlin’s Ido Cohen caused the first start to be aborted after stalling out of the final corner on the formation lap, which forced the rest of the grid to do a second formation lap as Cohen’s car was removed from the circuit.

Once the lights eventually went green, Edgar made a clean start to lead Smolyar and Collet as Novalak quickly cleared Sargeant and Schumacher for fourth.

Further behind the frontrunners, Vesti cleared Caldwell for seventh on the second lap in a calm opening three laps.

Smolyar meanwhile slowly reeled in Edgar and made a late dive up the inside of Turn One on lap four to take the lead, proceeding to soon build a nice gap of around 2.5 seconds as Edgar held the chasing pack up.

Novalak bided his time and snatched third on lap ten when Collet ran wide out of Turn Three as the Brazilian tried to pass Edgar, with Novalak eventually edging past the British rookie on lap 14.

Collet followed through one lap later with Sargeant eventually demoting Edgar to fifth, as Novalak set about chasing Smolyar down and had the gap down to 1.4s just before Rasmussen’s crash triggered the safety car finish.

Further back, David Schumacher struggled for pace as he tumbled to 11th with Caldwell demoting him from sixth on lap eight, before Vesti, Hauger and Martins dropped the German further down to tenth within the following four laps.

Nannini eventually snatched the final point on lap 16 with a move on Schumacher who will now start second on the reverse grid later this afternoon (3:45pm UK Time), alongside Fittipaldi who will start on reverse pole.