Matteo Nannini Cruises to Maiden Victory In 2021 F3 Hungarian Race Two

Matteo Nannini cruised to a maiden F3 victory in Hungarian Race Two ahead of Charouz’s Enzo Fittipaldi.

Fittipaldi led from reverse-pole but Nannini caught and passed the Brazilian into Turn One on lap four before proceeding to cruise to victory ahead of Fittipaldi and Roman Stanek.

Aleksandr Smolyar finished fourth ahead of Dennis Hauger, David Schumacher, Lorenzo Colombo, Clement Novalak, Logan Sargeant and Ayumu Iwasa.

In the driver standings, Hauger leads Olli Caldwell by 45 points after the Brit plus Doohan and Vesti failed to score points in this race, whilst Nannini moved up to eighth on 42 points with his victory.

Embed from Getty Images

Fittipaldi got a clean start as Nannini leapfrogged Stanek into second whilst Colombo lost two positions from sixth as he slipped to eighth behind Hauger as Smolyar leapt up to fourth ahead of Jack Doohan and Schumacher.

Nannini proceeded to immediately challenge Fittipaldi for the lead but was fended off until he got DRS at the start of lap four, which he used alongside the slipstream to sweep past the Brazilian into the lead which he held to the flag despite two warnings for track limit violations.

Fittipaldi meanwhile fended off Stanek and Smolyar as the top four finished as they were following Nannini’s race-winning overtake.

Doohan meanwhile controlled fifth as the midfield largely held position until the Australian’s tyres fell off the cliff on lap 16, just two laps after Hauger tried to unsuccessfully overtake Schumacher for sixth.

Schumacher however was able to place pressure on Doohan two laps after fending off Hauger with Doohan out braking himself into Turn Two to give Schumacher fifth, as Hauger was forced to wait until he made an outside move on lap 18 to take sixth.

Doohan thereafter dropped down the order as Colombo, Novalak, Sargeant and Iwasa all passed him on lap 19, with Arthur Leclerc and Caio Collet following suit on lap 20.

Hauger meanwhile snatched fifth from Schumacher on the penultimate lap to put further daylight between himself and his title rivals in the championship battle, as Caldwell, Doohan and Frederik Vesti all finished in 29, 13 and 16th positions respectively outside of the points.