Race report

FIA F3 Sochi

Sochi F3: Red Bull junior Vips wins season finale

Red Bull junior Juri Vips ended a barren run winning the FIA Formula 3 season finale at Sochi, while Ferrari protege Marcus Armstrong secured second in the championship.

Jack Benyon

Edited: Sep 29, 2019, 8:24 AM

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Juri Vips, Hitech Grand Prix

Hitech Grand Prix driver Vips led away from pole and went unchallenged until DRS was activated, when HWA’s Jake Hughes closed in.

But the key moment of the race came when Vips’s teammate Leonardo Pulcini put pressure on Hughes, the two banging wheels at Turn 4 on lap five of 20. One corner later they made contact and Pulcini spun out.

The drama allowed Vips to break the tow and on the next tour he set a fastest lap of the race to move three seconds clear.

After the incident Prema Racing’s race one winner Armstrong moved up to second and began to erode Vips’s lead, moving within 1.4s in the last three laps.

But the New Zealander couldn’t make any further meaningful inroads to give Vips a third win of the year and his first since July's Silverstone round.

Second was enough to give Armstrong second in the championship as his Prema teammate Jehan Daruvala had a technical issue on the grid and had to start from the pits.

The Indian driver had fought back to the top 10 but fell to 15th at the finish due to a penalty.

Spa race winner Pedro Piquet was set to take the final spot on the podium but had to retire with a technical issue three laps from the end, promoting newly-crowned champion Robert Shwartzman (Prema) to the place.

SMP Racing-backed Shwartzman ran eighth in the early stages but steadily worked his way forward, passing Hughes with five laps to go at Turn 13.

Hughes ended up fourth after Piquet's retirement while Niko Kari (Trident) ended his best weekend of the year in fifth.

Sixth went the way of Renault junior Yifei Ye (Hitech), his best finish of the year, ahead of MP Motorsport duo Richard Verschoor and Liam Lawson, who made a double pass on the final lap on Christian Lundgaard and Logan Sargeant for the last point.

The two new drivers to the series finished lying astern, with Ralf Schumacher’s son David taking 20th for Campos Racing ahead of Macanese driver Charles Leong (Jenzer).

Race results:

Cla # Driver Team Laps Gap 1 21 Estonia Jüri Vips United Kingdom HitechGP 20 2 26 New Zealand Marcus Armstrong Italy Prema Powerteam 20 2.159 3 28 Russian Federation Robert Shwartzman Italy Prema Powerteam 20 9.596 4 11 Jake Hughes Germany HWA AG 20 10.290 5 19 Finland Niko Kari Italy Trident 20 15.259 6 22 China Ye Yifei HitechGP 20 24.090 7 6 Netherlands Richard Verschoor MP Motorsport 20 24.901 8 4 New Zealand Liam Lawson MP Motorsport 20 28.414 9 3 Denmark Christian Lundgaard France ART Grand Prix 20 32.766 10 31 United States Logan Sargeant United Kingdom Carlin 20 33.237 11 2 Max Fewtrell France ART Grand Prix 20 34.111 12 17 Canada Devlin DeFrancesco Italy Trident 20 34.475 13 9 South Africa Raoul Hyman Czech Republic Charouz Racing System 20 34.829 14 27 India Jehan Daruvala Italy Prema Powerteam 20 37.091 15 30 Brazil Felipe Drugovich United Kingdom Carlin 20 38.358 16 20 Italy Leonardo Pulcini HitechGP 20 40.358 17 10 Netherlands Bent Viscaal Germany HWA AG 20 40.604 18 16 Germany Andreas Estner Switzerland Jenzer Motorsport 20 46.161 19 29 Japan Teppei Natori Carlin 20 47.022 20 23 Germany David Schumacher Spain Campos Racing 20 54.463 21 15 Leong Hon Jenzer Motorsport 20 1'05.369 22 24 Italy Alessio Deledda Spain Campos Racing 20 1'28.601 23 12 Germany Keyvan Andres Germany HWA AG 20 2'09.450 24 25 Venezuela Sebastian Fernandez Spain Campos Racing 19 1 Lap 25 14 Japan Yuki Tsunoda Switzerland Jenzer Motorsport 19 1 Lap 18 Brazil Pedro Piquet Italy Trident 16 4 Laps 5 Finland Simo Laaksonen Netherlands MP Motorsport 8 12 Laps 8 Fabio Scherer Czech Republic Charouz Racing System 8 12 Laps 7 Germany Lirim Zendeli Charouz Racing System 0 View full results

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