Lawson fourth after clashing with team mate

Marino Sato took his first victory in Formula 3 with an assured drive in the second Euroformula Open race at Paul Ricard.

A poor start for poleman Liam Lawson, followed up by Lawson then clashing with Motopark team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, gave Sato room at the front to drive mistake-free race.

Even when team-mate Lawson finally got past Teo Martín Motorsport’s Guilherme Samaia for second, Sato was able to match his times and ended up taking a comfortable 3.530 second victory.

The lap one clash with Tsunoda, where the pair made side-on contact going down the pit straight, has seen Lawson penalised, dropping him to fourth.

“We made a better job of Q2 so I was on pole,” commented Lawson. “But I didn’t make a good job of the start, my mistake, sorry for the contact with Yuki. I finished second but was penalised so ranked P4.”

Lawson still leads the overall standings with Sato in second and race one poleman Lukas Dunner in third.

As in race one, Double R Racing’s Linus Lundqvist got involved in lots of on-track battles and took fifth place after a lengthy tussle with Tsunoda.

Behind them were Carlin’s Christian Hahn and Teppei Natori, the second Double R car of Jack Doohan, and Motopark driver Julian Hanses. A overtake at the Mistral Straight chicane between Hahn and Doohan is also under investigation as Hahn cut the chicane.

One of the fiercest battles in the race was between Fortec Motorsports team-mates Cameron Das and Calan Williams, who finished 15th and 16th.

RP Motorsport’s Artem Petrov managed to beat them both, but his team-mates were not so lucky; Pierre-Louis Chovet retired, and Javier Gonzalez was unable to take the start.

The second round of the season takes place in Pau in three weeks’ time, where it will be awarding the coveted Pau Grand Prix title that was previously part of the F3 European Championship.

Also see: Lawson wins on debut in Euroformula

Euroformula Open: Race 2 (17 laps) – Top 10