Barcelona F3: Hughes takes first win in over a year

Category veteran Hughes passed Sargeant around the outside of Turn 1 on the seventh lap of 22 to sweep into the lead, having started alongside the Prema driver in second.

The Briton was untroubled thereafter and eventually won by 2.3 seconds over Red Bull junior Liam Lawson, who made a similar to move to Sargeant to grab second on lap 20.

Sargeant made a good start from pole to hold the lead over Hughes, but the race was neutralised after just a handful of corners after Silverstone sprint race winner Bent Viscaal (MP Motorsport) got beached in the gravel exiting Turn 5.

The safety car was deployed with the restart following at the start of lap 4, with Sargeant maintaining the advantage over Hughes and Hitech driver Lawson in third.

But Sargeant was unable to shake Hughes, and as soon as DRS became available for the first time on lap 7, the American driver was powerless to resist as Hughes went to the outside approaching Turn 1 and seized the inside line for Turn 2.

Hughes quickly built a margin out front before the safety car was called for a second time on lap 9, this time to retrieve the stranded Prema car of Frederik Vesti.

The race resumed on lap 12 with Hughes staying in command and quickly escaping DRS range,  going on to take his first win since last year's Red Bull Ring round, as Sargeant was forced to turn his attention towards defending from Lawson.

With three laps to go Lawson made a near-identical move to Hughes' from earlier in the race to seize second place, with Sargeant completing the podium.

Sargeant still came away with an enhanced points lead as Prema teammate Oscar Piastri, who went into the race five points behind, suffered a forgettable race.

From fourth on the grid, Renault junior Piastri was passed at the start by Carlin driver Clement Novalak, although he got the place back at Turn 10 on the first restart.

The second restart went less well for Piastri, who gave away positions to both Novalak and Trident driver David Beckmann by running wide at the penultimate corner just as the race was about to resume and dropped to sixth.

Novalak, Beckmann and Piastri would ultimately finish in that order, with Sargeant now leading the drivers' championship by 14 points as a result.

Completing the scorers were top ART Grand Prix finisher Theo Pourchaire, Alexander Peroni (Campos), Richard Verschoor (MP) and Matteo Nannini (Jenzer), who will start Sunday's reverse-grid race from pole position.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	15	Jake Hughes	HWA AG	22
2	5	Liam Lawson	HitechGP	22	2.388
3	3	Logan Sargeant	Prema Powerteam	22	3.948
4	26	Clement Novalak	Carlin	22	8.953
5	11	David Beckmann	Trident	22	9.826
6	1	Oscar Piastri	Prema Powerteam	22	10.222
7	7	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	22	10.751
8	29	Alexander Peroni	Campos Racing	22	12.172
9	17	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	22	12.351
10	22	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport	22	12.573
11	8	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	22	14.832
12	10	Lirim Zendeli	Trident	22	15.266
13	14	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA AG	22	15.665
14	16	Jack Doohan	HWA AG	22	16.445
15	9	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix	22	17.282
16	27	Leonardo Pulcini	Carlin	22	17.892
17	4	Max Fewtrell	HitechGP	22	18.925
18	6	Dennis Hauger	HitechGP	22	20.166
19	28	Cameron Das	Carlin	22	21.563
20	12	Olli Caldwell	Trident	22	22.489
21	19	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport	22	23.105
22	23	Roman Staněk	Charouz Racing System	22	24.159
23	25	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System	22	24.496
24	24	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System	22	25.776
25	20	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	22	26.262
26	21	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport	22	32.203
27	31	Sophia Flörsch	Campos Racing	22	33.174
28	30	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing	22	33.711
	2	Frederik Vesti	Prema Powerteam	8
	18	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	0
View full results