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Spa F3: Piquet becomes eighth different winner in 2019

Pedro Piquet became the eighth different winner of the FIA Formula 3 season at Spa, while Robert Shwartzman aided his title hopes with a storming drive through to second.

Pedro Piquet, Trident

Pedro Piquet, Trident

Gareth Harford / Motorsport Images

Piquet scarpered away at the start as carnage ensued behind, in which Jake Hughes was the big loser as he was spun out of fifth by Logan Sargeant.

Alex Peroni meanwhile ended up in the wall after turning in on seventh-place starter Devlin DeFrancesco, with the melee triggering a virtual safety car.

Piquet jumped the restart perfectly and his gap reached almost five seconds at one point, reduced to 2.2 seconds by the finish as he secured Trident Racing's first victory of the season.

Prema Racing’s Shwartzman started fourth and fell back initially, but worked his way back through the order, the Ferrari and SMP Racing junior crucially passing his pole-sitting teammate Jehan Daruvala for second on lap 14 of 17.

On the first lap after passing Daruvala, Shwartzman took 1.2s out of Piquet’s lead but struggled to make further inroads.

Daruvala held on for third after a battle in the closing stages allowed ART's Christian Lundgaard to take fourth.

Honda junior Yuki Tsunoda had his best starting spot of the season in third for Jenzer Motorsport and battled hard against Leonardo Pulcini, Daruvala and Shwartzman but ultimately had to let them go.

Tsunoda had held fellow Red Bull junior Juri Vips at bay and held fifth behind Pulcini comfortably until the closing stretch of the race.

Vips went three-wide with Tsunoda and the charging Lundgaard at Turn 7 on the final lap as all three jumped Pulcini. In the three-wide move, Lundgaard and Tsunoda went wide and allowed Vips through.

But Renault junior Lundgaard – who had started 14th – forced Vips into an error at the final corner and snatched fourth from the Estonian, with Tsunoda and Hitech's Pucini sixth and seventh.

Marcus Armstrong made sure all three Prema-run cars reached the top eight, the Kiwi Ferrari junior having started 19th after a scruffy qualifying. 

Armstrong will thus line up on the reversed-grid pole in Sunday’s race after scything through the field on Saturday morning.

The ART cars of Max Fewtrell and David Beckmann rounded out the top 10.

Race results:

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