Doohan wins wet F3 feature race in France

On a soggy morning in Southern France, Jack Doohan out-witted Championship leader Dennis Hauger to claim his first FIA Formula 3 victory at Paul Ricard.

The Australian and the Norwegian have raced against each other for many years in many different single-seater series as they climbed the racing ladder together so they are no strangers to racing wheel-to-wheel and Doohan came out on top this time as he held on to his wet tyres longer as the track dried towards the end of the race.

The race winning overtake with five laps to go looked to be the end of it but Hauger kept pushing to the end and was never too far away from making a move but the Trident of Doohan withstood the challenge.

Hauger does however extend his championship lead as Victor Martins could only manage fourth at his home race, being overtaken by MP Motorsport and Alpine academy teammate Caio Collet for the final spot on the podium.

It was a result much needed for Collet having not scored in the two races on Saturday while Martins will still be content with a very healthy chunk of points after his double Saturday podium.

Clément Novalak had a super start and was up to third in the early exchanges but he dropped back to fifth as he couldn’t match the pace of the leading quartet.

He did however manage to pass and pull away from pole sitter Frederik Vesti who was probably the most unhappy at the sudden downpour that caused mass changes of setup and tyres on the grid. The Dane finished sixth in the end which was not what he would have hoped for after grabbing pole on Friday.

Ayumu Iwasa has been the standout Hitech GP driver all weekend and backed that pace up in the wet too, passing race one winner Aleksandr Smolyar for seventh late on, banking more points in the championship.

Smolyar was eighth across the line ahead of ART teammate Juan Manuel Correa who had a largely lonely race while Jak Crawford scored another point in tenth.

Title contender Olli Caldwell had a nightmare race as contact in the opening laps caused suspension damage to his PREMA and he was forced to retire from the race.