Jack Doohan put on the perfect display of defensive driving to take his second win of the weekend in another race that was again compromised by rain.
The Australian held off Victor Martins and Alex Smolyar, making history winning two races on the same weekend, becoming the first ever driver to do so in FIA Formula 3.
There were moments of tension throughout the race with the battle between Doohan and Martins continuing in a verbal fashion after the chequered flag was flown, Martins arguing that he’d been forced off the track when he was forced to give back the position after overtaking Doohan off the track.
Given a second chance, Doohan didn’t make any other mistakes which might allow Martins to get through keeping the lead for the rest of the race, these two victories have now cut Dennis Hauger’s lead to 25 points when it was 63 points before the weekend started.
After only managing fourteenth in qualifying, the championship leader knew that he had to make up as many positions as possible with the PREMA’S struggling with getting their tyres going throughout the race. The Norwegian made up positions to finish in eighth after briefly being stuck behind Doohan’s team-mate David Schumacher.
Behind the battle for the win, Smolyar took his third podium of the season ahead of Caio Collet in fourth position, Clémant Novalak, Frederik Vesti and Logan Sargeant.
It was a second start behind the safety car in the weekend, the race eventually being green flagged with fourteen laps remaining. Even though Martins was in the slip stream of Doohan going onto the Kemmel straight, the spray hampered the Frenchman who was unable to make what in ‘ordinary’ conditions would be a relatively simple move.
Jack Doohan was very happy to have taken the win although he concedes that his pace wasn’t necessarily the fastest in the field.
“I am very happy, although I didn’t have the pace that I would like to have had. We didn’t have the same pace as yesterday, but in the end, we got the job done and I adapted as well as I could have.”
Doohan was very complementary of Martins drive conceding that the Alpine junior had the better pace, Doohan having to use the places where he was strongest to pull away from his rival, the Australian is delighted and now heads off to the next race in Zandvoort full of confidence.
“Victor had an awesome race and had very strong pace. He was definitely quicker than I was, but luckily, I was able to pull away in the few areas that I was quicker and did enough to keep the gap. I am very happy and off to Zandvoort now.”