Colapinto secures emotional victory for MP Motorsport in damp Silverstone sprint race

Franco Colapinto won a rain-affected Formula 3 sprint race at Silverstone to secure an emotional victory for MP Motorsport.

Colapinto was third with five laps remaining, but then a collision between the top two of Sebastian Montoya and Taylor Barnard put Colapinto into a lead he kept until the end.

It was an emotional victory for the Williams junior and his team, just a week after the death of fellow MP driver Dilano van ’T Hoff at a Formula Regional European Championship race at Spa.

He was joined on the podium by Gabriel Bortoleto and Christian Mansell in the damp conditions, which caused frenzy throughout.

The race start was delayed by 10 minutes, as weather conditions changed while the cars were on the grid. This presented the choice of switching to wet tyres, but only Gregoire Saucy made the change leaving all front runners on the dry compound.

That included Montoya, who lined up on pole position on the partially reversed grid. Jonny Edgar joined him on the front row, with Barnard and Colapinto starting directly behind.

As the lights went out, Montoya got an excellent start to remain in the lead. Behind, Barnard overtook Edgar for second with a faultless move around the outside of Abbey, but both drivers soon moved down as Colapinto completed a double overtake down the inside of The Loop.

Before the end of the opening lap, Barnard had retaken second while Edgar continuously dropped down the order and was out of the points by lap three.

In the following laps, drivers started to slide with light rain falling while the top four drivers were all within two seconds of each other.

But then a Safety Car period interrupted proceedings on lap eight, due to the conditions continued to worsen. Many drivers used this as an opportunity to pit for wet tyres, but fourth-placed Luke Browning was the only front runner to make the switch. On lap 11, fifth-placed Gabriele Mini was told no more rain was expected with the top 10 all on slick tyres.

Then things drastically changed on the lap 13 restart. Going into Abbey, Barnard hit the back of Montoya which caused the top two to slide off and fall down the order. As Colapinto inherited the race lead, Montoya and Barnard dropped out of the points which left Bortoleto and Mansell in second and third respectively.

However in the midfield, drivers were dramatically changing positions as the wet-tyre runners found a lot more grip than their slick counterparts. This caused many of the dry runners to drop down the order, which left just the top four on slicks in the closing laps.

Montoya, however, was one driver managing the conditions well as the Red Bull junior was making a brilliant recovery drive following his slide off track. By the penultimate lap, he had climbed up to eighth while race leader Colapinto continued to extend his advantage.

The Williams Academy driver then crossed the line 3.7 seconds ahead of Bortoleto, with Mansell finishing in third to collect his first F3 podium after resisting late pressure from Caio Collet on the final lap.

The Van Amersfoort driver therefore took fourth, with Mini, Hugh Barter, Leonardo Fornaroli, Montoya, Ido Cohen and Pepe Marti then rounding up the remaining points positions. The result extends Bortoleto’s championship lead to 44 points over Pepe Marti, with Dino Beganovic in third, one point behind the Campos driver.

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Formula 3 Great Britain race one results

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