PREMA extends Team Championship lead in tough Feature Race
It was an extremely complicated day for PREMA Racing at Spa-Francorchamps, as the team got back on track for the Feature Race in the penultimate round of the 2023 FIA Formula 3 Championship.
The weather became a variable again as the race started on a damp track, and the field split strategies. In the early stages, the drivers who had started on wet tyres got the advantage, and Paul Aron cruised to the lead, opening a massive gap.
When a safety car wiped away his margin, the team decided to call him back to the pits for slicks. However, the track dried slowly, and only in the final couple of laps the tyre advantage came into play. At the point, it was too late, so Aron had to content with P8.
Dino Beganovic and Zak O'Sullivan started on slicks and struggled in the early part of the race, despite the safety car recompacted the pack. In the end, they also started lapping quicker and quicker, but they eventually finished in P12 and P16, respectively.
Despite all the ups and downs, PREMA Racing extended its lead in the Team Championship, while Aron sits second in the Driver Championship ahead of the Monza finale.
#1 - Paul Aron
"What a tricky race we had today. We started from P11 and we had very difficult conditions. We made the right call with the team to go with wet tyres and we managed to take the lead in two corners. We pulled a massive gap. Unfortunately, when we made the choice to pit, the strategy didn't work, and we finished eighth. It's still a bit disappointing because the win was in front of us, but it's easy to say which was the right strategy after. In the end, we leave the round second in the standings, and we can't be mad about the weekend."
#2 - Dino Beganovic
"A very disappointing weekend, we go away with zero points. Tricky conditions again in the feature race. We need to analyze what went wrong as I didn't have the pace I wanted. It will be a bit of a working holiday to make a step for Monza."
#3 - Zak O'Sullivan
"P12 on the Feature Race, quite a tricky race in the top-10 who started on slicks. It was a bit too wet at the beginning, because the wet runners got through and with the safety car they kind of got a bit of a free pitstop. The track started to dry throughout the race and we didn't quite have the pace we had yesterday. We will be looking into that, but still a bit of an unlucky race."