Silverstone F3: Lawson fends off Piastri for victory

Hitech driver Lawson shared the front row with first-time poleman Logan Sargeant, but passed the American driver with a gutsy move around the outside of Stowe on the first lap of 25 to grab an early advantage.

After a brief virtual safety car period, caused by Matteo Nannini coming to a stop at Luffield, Lawson managed to escape from Sargeant to the tune of one second by the sixth lap.

Piastri then passed Prema stablemate Sargeant to take over as Lawson’s main challenger by passing at Stowe with the help of DRS, and had reduced the gap to half a second by lap 9.

After a failed attack the following lap, Piastri nearly made an outside move at Stowe stick on lap 11 as he and Lawson ran side-by-side through Vale and Club, with Lawson hanging on.

At the end of the next lap, the safety car was deployed when Jack Doohan clattered into the side of Bent Viscaal’s car, the pair coming to rest against the barriers on the entrance to the national pits at Woodcote.

MP Motorsport’s Viscaal had spun after making contact with Carlin stand-in Ben Barnicoat at Luffield, leaving HWA driver Doohan with nowhere else to go.

The race resumed on lap 16, with Lawson making a strong restart to stave off Piastri, but the safety car was called again after a three-car incident at Club.

Max Fewtrell – who started fourth but dropped down the order after being forced on to the grass while battling Frederik Vesti on the opening lap – made contact with Oli Caldwell coming through Vale, pitching the Trident driver into a spin.

Lukas Dunner (MP) then collected the stricken Caldwell, tearing the rear end from the Briton’s car and leaving a considerable amount of debris on the track.

It meant the race would ultimately finish under the safety car, with Lawson claiming his first feature race win of 2020 and Renault junior Piastri stretching his points advantage with his third consecutive second-place finish.

Sargeant completed the podium in third, while Jake Hughes (HWA) took his best finish of the year so far in fourth having passed Vesti (Prema) around half-distance.

Alexander Peroni was sixth for Campos having started in the same position, the result of having a laptime in qualifying that was originally deleted reinstated.

Completing the scorers were Sebastian Fernandez (ART), Clement Novalak (Carlin) and David Beckmann (Trident) and Alexander Smolyar (ART), who grabbed 10th from Richard Verschoor (MP) on the final green-flag lap to take reverse-grid pole for Sunday’s sprint race.

After being nudged into the Luffield gravel by Viscaal, Barnicoat completed his first single-seater race since 2016 in 20th place, two spots ahead of Sophia Floersch (Campos), who was tipped into a spin by Red Bull junior Dennis Hauger on the opening lap.

Race results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Gap
1	5	Liam Lawson	HitechGP	20
2	1	Oscar Piastri	Prema Powerteam	20	1.060
3	3	Logan Sargeant	Prema Powerteam	20	2.698
4	15	Jake Hughes	HWA AG	20	5.127
5	2	Frederik Vesti	Prema Powerteam	20	9.087
6	29	Alexander Peroni	Campos Racing	20	11.298
7	9	Sebastian Fernandez	ART Grand Prix	20	13.542
8	26	Clement Novalak	Carlin	20	15.461
9	11	David Beckmann	Trident	20	17.847
10	8	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	20	21.295
11	17	Richard Verschoor	MP Motorsport	20	24.424
12	7	Theo Pourchaire	ART Grand Prix	20	30.609
13	10	Lirim Zendeli	Trident	20	34.001
14	20	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	20	35.534
15	24	Igor Fraga	Charouz Racing System	20	36.587
16	6	Dennis Hauger	HitechGP	20	43.637
17	23	Roman Staněk	Charouz Racing System	20	45.157
18	14	Enzo Fittipaldi	HWA AG	20	46.350
19	21	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport	20	47.149
20	27	Ben Barnicoat	Carlin	20	49.118
21	28	Cameron Das	Carlin	20	50.073
22	31	Sophia Flörsch	Campos Racing	20	51.724
23	30	Alessio Deledda	Campos Racing	20	55.015
24	22	Matteo Nannini	Jenzer Motorsport	20	1'03.739
25	25	David Schumacher	Charouz Racing System	19	1 Lap
	12	Olli Caldwell	Trident	15
	4	Max Fewtrell	HitechGP	15
	19	Lukas Dunner	MP Motorsport	15
	18	Bent Viscaal	MP Motorsport	11
	16	Jack Doohan	HWA AG	11
View full results