matteo nannini

12th September 2020

F3 Mugello: Vesti wins feature race as Sargeant levels championship

Frederik Vesti beat Jake Hughes and Lirim Zendelli to victory in the Mugello feature race, as Logan Sargeant drew level with Oscar Piastri in the title standings.

With plenty of championship positions on the line, the race began with a relatively cautious start. Zendelli, Hughes and Vesti, starting from the top three, held their positions into the first corner, while most of the top ten behind them followed through more or less in order. However, Enzo Fittipaldi was shuffled down from his starting position of fourth off the line by Sargeant and Theo Pourchaire.

Zendelli and Hughes, battling for seventh in the standings, began to pull away from the rest of the pack in the opening phase of the race as both set fastest laps early on. While Zendelli initially held a one-second gap over Hughes, a mistake on lap 4 gave the HWA driver a chance into Turn 1 at the start of lap 5.

Zendelli held the position around the outside, but was unable to keep Hughes behind for long. After trying another move on lap 6, Hughes finally got by for first a lap later, hanging on around the outside to take Zendelli into the chicane after Turn 1.

This began a game of cat and mouse between the Trident and the HWA, as Zendelli came back at Hughes on lap 7 to retake the lead before being passed by Hughes again on lap 13.

Jake Hughes, HWA (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

This close fighting for the lead allowed Vesti to draw up enough to join the battle in the second half of the race. On lap 14 Zendelli went deep into Turn 1 trying to repass Hughes, and this put Vesti within a few tenths of the Trident. A lap later, Vesti moved around the outside into Turn 1 and moved ahead of Zendelli into second.

Vesti wasted little time in going after Hughes, and he tried to take the lead at the start of the next lap. Hughes held the inside into Turn 1 to see Vesti off, but a mistake from Hughes later in the lap gave Vesti the opportunity to take first place on lap 17.

Hughes briefly retook the lead on the penultimate lap with another overtake around the outside of Turn 1, but Vesti came back at him at the same corner on the final lap and got back ahead. With few overtaking opportunities later in the lap, Vesti was able to hold on and beat Hughes to his third win of the year.

Zendelli had held on to third for most of the race after dropping behind Vesti. But the consequences of his hard battle with Hughes earlier on meant that he ran out of tyre life in the later stages, and ended up losing third place to Pourchaire on the final lap.

Logan Sargeant, Prema (Clive Mason / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

While Vesti battled for the race win, his Prema teammates Sargeant and Piastri were fighting hard to better their respective championship positions going into tomorrow’s title-deciding sprint race.

After getting up to fourth at the start, Sargeant was unable to keep pace with the top three and ended up fifth behind Pourchaire by the end of the second lap. As Pourchaire then set off in pursuit of the podium, Sargeant’s race settled into one with Fittipaldi to hold fifth place.

Sargeant stayed ahead for most of the race, but Fittipaldi got ahead on lap 17 as Sargeant struggled with oversteer from his fading tyres. Sargeant retook fifth on lap 19, but was unable to hold on to the place and Fittipaldi got back through on the final lap for his best finish of the season so far.

Finishing in sixth wasn’t such a loss to Sargeant, however, as his main rival Piastri failed to score at all. Relegated to 16^th on the grid due to a penalty from the Monza sprint race, Piastri’s job was to make as many moves as possible and try to salvage reverse grid pole for tomorrow.

But despite making early progress, picking off the likes of Matteo Nannini, Alex Peroni and Dennis Hauger in the early phase of the race, Piastri’s pace slowed after passing Richard Verschoor for 12^th on lap 13. It took Piastri another five laps to take 11^th place from Jack Doohan, by which point tenth-placed Liam Lawson was too far ahead for Piastri to reel in by the chequered flag.

Jack Doohan, HWA (Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull Content Pool)

With Sargeant scoring eight points for sixth, the two Premas are level on 160 points in the championship. Piastri is still ahead on results countback, but he will start tomorrow’s crucial reverse grid race just outside the points, while Sargeant will start from fifth place.

As for the other outside title contenders, only Pourchaire is still able to win the championship tomorrow. His podium has in fact bettered his chances, as the ART driver is now only nine points behind Piastri and Sargeant on 151.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	25
2	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	18
3	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	15
4	Lirim Zendelli (FL)	Trident	14
5	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab	10
6	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing	8
7	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	6
8	David Beckmann	Trident	4
9	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix	2
10	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	1
11	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing
12	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
13	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
14	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
15	David Schumacher	Carlin Buzz Racing
16	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
17	Olli Caldwell	Trident
18	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
19	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
20	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
21	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
22	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
23	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
24	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
25	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
26	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
27	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System
28	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport

5th September 2020

F3 Monza: Vesti wins as Piastri claws back title lead

Frederik Vesti took his second feature race win of the season at Monza, as his teammate Oscar Piastri recovered to the podium from 15^th on the grid to take back the championship lead.

The race started with a mixed-up grid as nine drivers including pole winner Theo Pourchaire were penalised for driving unnecessarily slowly to set up their final flying laps. Hitech’s Liam Lawson inherited pole ahead of Matteo Nannini and Jake Hughes, while Pourchaire dropped to sixth behind Logan Sargeant.

But despite losing pole, Pourchaire leapt back into contention for the win at the start. After passing Sargeant and Calan Williams for fourth off the line, the Frenchman then took third from Hughes in the opening corners. Second place followed on lap two with a pass on Nannini, as Pourchaire set the fastest lap to keep close to the leading Lawson.

Pourchaire caught Lawson on lap 4 and took the lead from the Red Bull junior. Setting another fastest lap in the process, Pourchaire began pulling away from the field with what looked set to be a dominant early lead.

Theo Pourchaire, ART (Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

While Pourchaire was lighting up the timing screen in front, Vesti was taking advantage of mistakes from the drivers around him to make steady progress through the field.

Starting from ninth on the grid, Vesti passed his teammate Sargeant for eighth on lap 4 after the American ran wide battling with Alex Peroni. He gained seventh place shortly after when Igor Fraga went off at the Rettifilo, then moved up to fifth when Peroni spun round Williams on lap 7.

On lap 9, Nannini collided with Lawson trying to take away third and retired with front suspension damage. The incident allowed Vesti to close up on Lawson, and on lap 12 he forced his way into third into the second Lesmo.

Vesti’s progress was briefly halted when Sebastian Fernandez spun off and brought out the safety car. But at the restart Vesti immediately pounced on Hughes to take second place, with just a second splitting him from Pourchaire.

After cutting the gap down to five tenths, Vesti took the lead from Pourchaire at Rettifilo with three laps to go, and led the ART home until the chequered flag.

Oscar Piastri, Prema (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

Vesti’s teammate Piastri took third place in a race of contrasting fortunes for him and title rival Sargeant.

After the qualifying penalties played out, Sargeant emerged as the luckier of the two as he was elevated to fifth while Piastri remained in 15^th place. But when the race began Sargeant seemed to lack pace compared to the cars around him. After losing out to Pourchaire and running wide battling with Fraga in the opening laps, Sargeant then went off at Rettifilo on lap 5 and dropped to 11^th, just in front of Piastri.

The two Premas jostled each other for position as they both inched their way up into the lower top ten. After Sargeant fought back to keep ahead of Piastri just after his mistake, Piastri got definitively ahead of the American on lap 10 while they fought over eighth place. Piastri then managed to put a car between him and Sargeant as he passed Lirim Zendelli for seventh.

At the safety car restart on lap 14 Piastri gained sixth place from David Beckmann. But more importantly for the championship battle, behind him Sargeant was tapped into a spin by Clement Novalak at the Della Roggia chicane and dropped right to the back of the field.

With Sargeant’s chances of scoring points effectively gone, Piastri’s sixth was already enough to return him to the top of the standings. But instead of holding steady, Piastri continued pushing forward. After taking fifth from Peroni on lap 18, Piastri then breezed past Lawson for fourth at the same time as Vesti took the lead from Pourchaire. Finally, Piastri caught and passed Hughes on the penultimate lap to move himself up onto the podium.

MONZA, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 05: Race winner Frederik Vesti of Denmark and Prema Racing, second placed Theo Pourchaire of France and ART Grand Prix and third placed Oscar Piastri of Australia and Prema Racing celebrate on the podium during race one of the Formula 3 Championship at Autodromo di Monza on September 05, 2020 in Monza, Italy. (Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Hughes lost a further place on the final lap, with Beckmann beating him to the line in fourth. Lawson finished sixth ahead of Zendelli, Bent Viscaal and Enzo Fittipaldi. Michael Belov finished tenth for Charouz for his first point in F3.

With Sargeant eventually finishing the race in 26^th, Piastri now has an eight-point lead in the standings, which is likely to increase tomorrow as Sargeant will be starting the sprint race well outside the points.

But despite Sargeant’s non-score, Vesti’s win and Piastri’s podium was enough for Prema to wrap up the teams’ championship with three races still to go.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Frederik Vesti (FL)	Prema Racing	27
2	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	18
3	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	15
4	David Beckmann	Trident	12
5	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	10
6	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	8
7	Lirim Zendelli	Trident	6
8	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	4
9	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab	2
10	Michael Belov	Charouz Racing System	1
11	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
12	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
13	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
14	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
15	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
16	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
17	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
18	Pierre-Louis Chovet	Hitech Grand Prix
19	David Schumacher	Carlin Buzz Racing
20	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix
21	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
22	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
23	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
24	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System
25	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
26	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing
27	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
Ret.	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
Ret.	Olli Caldwell	Trident
Ret.	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport

15th August 202015th August 2020

F3 Spain: Hughes takes feature race win

Jake Hughes took his first win of the 2020 Formula 3 season in the Barcelona feature race, beating polesitter Logan Sargeant.

Sargeant held first place at the start with a decent launch over Hughes, but was unable to drop the HWA over the opening laps. Following a brief safety car brought out by Bent Viscaal going off on lap 1, Hughes was able to keep within half a second of Sargeant while he waited for DRS to be enabled.

Hughes was close enough to make a move on lap 7, and he swept around the outside of Sargeant at Turn 1 to take the lead. Almost immediately, Hughes was able to break over a second away from Sargeant, while the American started to come under pressure from Liam Lawson running in third.

Liam Lawson, Hitech (Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull Content Pool)

The safety car came back out on lap 9 when Frederik Vesti’s Prema ground to a halt on track. But Sargeant wasn’t able to use the restart to gain on Hughes, who broke almost a second clear before setting the fastest lap the next time around.

Sargeant then found himself with Lawson half a second behind. Lawson tried two moves to the inside of Turn 1 on laps 18 and 19 but Sargeant was able to hold him off each time. But on lap 20 Lawson tried around the outside instead, and this time took the position to finish second behind Hughes.

Sargeant remained on the podium on third, taking valuable points in the championship battle as his main rival Oscar Piastri had another tricky race. After battling in the early laps to keep fourth from Clement Novalak, Piastri ran wide at the second safety car restart and dropped behind Novalak and David Beckmann.

Piastri was unable to recover the positions and finished the race in sixth, three places down on Sargeant. Theo Pourchaire took seventh ahead of Alex Peroni and Richard Verschoor, while Matteo Nannini put his Jenzer into tenth to take his and the team’s first point of the season.

Alex Peroni, Campos (Dan Istitene / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Jake Hughes (FL)	HWA Racelab	27
2	Liam Lawson	Hitech Grand Prix	18
3	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing	15
4	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing	12
5	David Beckmann	Trident	10
6	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	8
7	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	6
8	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing	4
9	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	2
10	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport	1
11	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix
12	Lirim Zendelli	Trident
13	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
14	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
15	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
16	Leonardo Pulcini	Carlin Buzz Racing
17	Max Fewtrell	Hitech Grand Prix
18	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix
19	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
20	Olli Caldwell	Trident
21	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
22	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
23	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System
24	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System
25	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
26	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport
27	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
28	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
Ret.	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing
Ret.	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport

8th August 20208th August 2020

F3 Great Britain: Sargeant controls feature race for first F3 win

Prema’s Logan Sargeant took his first Formula 3 win in the Silverstone feature race, controlling from the front after breaking away early.

Sargeant got a good launch from pole position to hold the lead into the first corner. Behind him, second-placed starter Liam Lawson was slow away and was passed by Jake Hughes starting from third.

While Hughes was occupied with getting past Lawson, Sargeant immediately set about opening a gap in front. By lap 7 the American was already 2.5 seconds ahead of Hughes, and managed to maintain the same distance for the majority of the race.

The gap only increased in the closing stages as Hughes’ tyres started to lose grip, with Sargeant running more than three seconds clear in the final four laps. Hughes eventually fell back to within half a second of Lawson, although he just managed to hold off the Hitech to take his first podium of the year in second.

Jake Hughes, HWA Racelab (Dan Istitene / Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Lawson crossed the line in third, having held the position throughout a race-long battle with Frederik Vesti. Lawson appeared to struggle with his tyres all through the race and after the opening laps a train was already forming behind him including Vesti, Theo Pourchaire, David Beckmann and Bent Viscaal.

But despite Vesti’s pace advantage, Lawson was able to successfully defend against the Dane’s attempts at overtaking him. The time lost trying to pass Lawson then left Vesti vulnerable to Pourchaire behind, and on lap 9 the Frenchman tried a move through Vale. Pourchaire briefly got ahead into fourth, but Vesti was able to retake the place and Pourchaire ended up losing out to Beckmann as well.

After being told by his engineer to get after Lawson and commit to a move, Vesti set successive fastest laps and caught the Hitech again in the second half of the race. However, he was still unable to make a move stick and had to settle for fourth ahead of Beckmann.

Pourchaire finished sixth in the end, just holding off Oscar Piastri through the final corners with help from yellow flags for a collision between Sebastian Fernandez and Matteo Nannini at the back of the field. Piastri managed to recover back into the points after trouble in qualifying yesterday, although he ran out of laps to make the most of a late-race turn of speed.

Viscaal finished in eighth place, with Clement Novalak ninth and Lirim Zendelli taking reverse grid pole for tomorrow in tenth. Lawson scored the additional two points for fastest lap.

Sargeant’s victory and Piastri’s finish in the lower half of the points means Sargeant now takes over the lead of the championship by six points from his teammate.

Update: Novalak received a post-race five-second penalty for running off track and gaining an advantage, dropping him out of the points to P13. Zendelli was promoted to P9 and Ben Barnicoat to P10 for his first point of the season and reverse grid pole. Nannini also received a grid penalty for tomorrow’s sprint race for hitting Fernandez.

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Logan Sargeant	Prema Racing	25
2	Jake Hughes	HWA Racelab	18
3	Liam Lawson (FL)	Hitech Grand Prix	17
4	Frederik Vesti	Prema Racing	12
5	David Beckmann	Trident	10
6	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	8
7	Oscar Piastri	Prema Racing	6
8	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	4
9	Lirim Zendelli	Trident	2
10	Ben Barnicoat	Carlin Buzz Racing	1
11	Cameron Das	Carlin Buzz Racing
12	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART Grand Prix
13	Clement Novalak	Carlin Buzz Racing
14	Alex Peroni	Campos Racing
15	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System
16	Max Fewtrell	Hitech Grand Prix
17	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA Racelab
18	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System
19	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
20	Sophia Floersch	Campos Racing
21	Olli Caldwell	Trident
22	Roman Stanek	Charouz Racing System
23	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
24	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix
25	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing
26	Jack Doohan	HWA Racelab
Ret.	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport
Ret.	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport
Ret.	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motosport
Ret.	Dennis Hauger	Hitech Grand Prix

1st August 20201st August 2020

F3 Great Britain: Lawson holds off Premas for feature race win

Liam Lawson took his second win of the Formula 3 season at the Silverstone feature race, seeing off the Premas of Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant in a race fraught with incidents.

Lawson started from second behind polesitter Sargeant. Although Sargeant held first off the line, Lawson was close enough to harry him throughout the opening lap and make a lunge around the outside of Stowe to steal the lead.

After a brief interruption on lap 4, when Matteo Nannini slowed on track and brought out a Virtual Safety Car, Lawson began pulling away from Sargeant. The American driver then dropped back into the clutches of teammate Piastri, who demoted Sargeant to third on lap 7.

Piastri was better able to keep pace with Lawson than Sargeant, closing to within half a second by lap 9. On lap 11 Piastri drew alongside Lawson under DRS and looked set to take first place, but the Australian ran wide over the kerbs and couldn’t complete the move.

Oscar Piastri, Prema (Bryn Lennon / Getty Images)

With Piastri right on his tail, Lawson was handed a saving grace shortly after when the safety car was deployed for Bent Viscaal, who spun after contact with Ben Barnicoat through Luffield and collected Jack Doohan’s HWA.

The safety car remained out for four laps, but was then redeployed almost immediately when Olli Caldwell spun in the middle of the pack and was hit heavily by Lukas Dunner and Max Fewtrell.

With Caldwell’s rear wing and suspension across the track, the race went on to end under the safety car, preserving Lawson’s first place over Piastri and Sargeant.

Jake Hughes finished fourth ahead of the third Prema of Frederik Vesti, with Alex Peroni climbing up from 18^th on the grid to take sixth. Sebastian Fernandez finished seventh, Clement Novalak took eighth and the fastest lap, David Beckmann was ninth, and Aleksandr Smolyar took the reverse grid pole for the tomorrow in tenth.

Logan Sargeant, Prema (Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)

Full race result:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Points
1	Liam Lawson	Hitech	25
2	Oscar Piastri	Prema	18
3	Logan Sargeant	Prema	15
4	Jake Hughes	HWA	12
5	Frederik Vesti	Prema	10
6	Alex Peroni	Campos	8
7	Sebastian Fernandez	ART	6
8	Clement Novalak (FL)	Carlin	6
9	David Beckmann	Trident	2
10	Aleksandr Smolyar	ART	1
11	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport
12	Theo Pourchaire	ART
13	Lirim Zendelli	Trident
14	Calan Williams	Jenzer
15	Igor Fraga	Charouz
16	Dennis Hauger	Hitech
17	Roman Stanek	Charouz
18	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA
19	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer
20	Ben Barnicoat	Carlin
21	Cameron Das	Carlin
22	Sophia Floersch	Campos
23	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer
24	Alessio Deledda	Campos
25	David Schumacher	Charouz
Ret.	Olli Caldwell	Trident
Ret.	Max Fewtrell	Hitech
Ret.	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport
Ret.	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport
Ret.	Jack Doohan	HWA