Marti claims third win of season in emphatic style on home ground

Pepe Marti scored his third Formula 3 victory of the season in emphatic fashion in today’s feature race at his home track in Barcelona.

Gabriel Bortoleto finished fourth to maintain his championship lead after a largely orderly race which was interrupted by a single Safety Car period.

Marti claimed pole position on Friday ahead of rookie Taylor Barnard, who made his first front row appearance. As the lights went out, Marti immediately moved to the right and covered off the inside line from his rival.

Doing so led Barnard to look around the outside of turn one but the gap vanished at the inside of the following corner. Barnard took to the escape road at turn two, rejoining alongside Marti, but the pole-winner kept his rival on the outside and remained ahead.

Further back, two drivers who reached the podium yesterday collided on the opening lap. Luke Browning and Leonardo Fornaroli tangled at turn four after the Trident driver attempted an overtake around the outside. The pair made contact, sending both drivers into the gravel.

That left the Williams junior with a rear-left puncture and suspension damage, which brought him to a halt on-track approaching turn five. The field came by the stationary Hitech car through a yellow flag, before the Safety Car was summoned so it could be retrieved.

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After complaining how slow the Safety Car was going, Marti controlled the lap six restart well and pulled out a second advantage over Barnard. But the rookie, a protege of 2016 Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg, then rapidly dropped down the order.

On lap 11, Colapinto overtook Barnard using DRS into turn one for second. The Jenzer driver was then done again with a similar move the following lap as Beganovic took third.

Barnard lost another place as Bortoleto used DRS into turn one to overtake him for fourth on lap 17. The rookie lost another position later that lap, Paul Aron making a brilliant move around the outside of turn five to claim fifth.

It only got worse for Barnard, who went wide out of the final corner at the end of the lap and lost positions to Mari Boya and Sebastián Montoya down the start-finish straight. However, he recovered to repass Montoya for seventh at turn two.

This left Montoya in a constant back-and-forth battle with Oliver Goethe behind, both drivers trading positions, the Hitech driver ultimately keeping eighth. He soon moved up again by overtaking Barnard with DRS down the start-finish straight for seventh on lap 22.

Further up the field, Marti’s lead was left unchallenged as he consistently increased his advantage over Colapinto to become the first driver to reach three wins this year.

Marti, who is backed by Fernando Alonso, moves up to second in the championship, 24 points behind Bortoleto. Beganovic is seven points behind Marti in third, with Gabriele Mini and Aron completing the top five.

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