Lawson laments difficult Spa

The dark sky that hung over the Francorchamps circuit before the FIA F3 Race 2 on Sunday reflected the sombre mood as a minute’s silence was held for Anthoine Hubert who tragically lost his life following a crash in Saturday’s F2 race.

Saturday’s F3 race had been a staunch test for the Red Bull Juniors with Jüri Vips managing 5th after qualifying 6th and Yuki Tsunoda having to fight hard for 6th having qualified 3rd. For Liam Lawson it was 12th from P10.

Marcus Armstrong and emotionally dedicated the win to the late Anthoine Hubert, following the tragic events in yesterday’s Formula 2 race. Armstrong led from lights-to-flag to finish ahead of Jenzer Motorsport’s Yuki Tsunoda, who scored his highest ever finish in the Championship. Robert Shwartzman came home third, after a late overtake on ART Grand Prix’s Christian Lundgaard.

Those black clouds did produce a smattering of rain during Sunday’s reverse grid race. Tsunoda was very strong and took second while Vips had a damaged car from the first corner and later had to pit for a new front wing following a post safety car restart incident. Lawson finished 19th after being knocked into an early spin.

“A very frustrating weekend I’m afraid, just not fast enough,” stated the 17-year-old New Zealander. “I couldn’t say where the problem is, set-up, it’s got to be a combination of things and I couldn’t put my finger on it honestly.”

“Free Practice looked good but we were using new tyres and the top teams all ran used tyres so that didn’t mean anything. When it came to Qualifying we just didn’t have it.”

“Then in the race I did everything I could, pushed hard but I was just holding people up behind who had more pace so I let a couple go and concentrated on keeping some tyres for the end. That worked and I did get a couple back at the end but it wasn’t enough.”

“Then today I got hit and turned around, it put me way last and I just did what I could from there. Not a good weekend,” concluded the MP Motorsport driver.

FIA Formula 3 Round 6 – Race 2 provisional classification