Ahmed triumphs to leave Snetterton with British F3 points lead

Douglas Motorsport’s Enaam Ahmed won a closely fought final race of the British Formula 3 season opener at Snetterton.

The 2015 MSA Formula rookie champion beat poleman Toby Sowery off the grid into Turn 1 and then held off the Lanan racer to win and take an early seven point lead in the championship from race one victor Lando Norris.

“I am really, really happy to progress from third in race one, second in race two and now winner in race three,” said Ahmed.

“It was not an easy race as I was struggling for pace a little bit but I controlled the gap fairly well.

“Toby and Lando were giving me a run for my money and it was hard to keep them behind as I hit a bollard down the straight and I thought that I might have broken my front wing for a second.”

Ahmed led throughout, but his victory was hard fought, with the top five cars covered by just two-seconds at the chequered flag, Ahmed winning from Sowery and Norris.

“I can’t complain with second or my weekend, as I’ve scored a good haul of points,” said runner-up Sowery.

“I was trying to attack Enaam but defend from Lando and that was really hard but it was good, competitive racing.”

Matheus Leist and Thomas Randle completed the closely covered top five, with Aleksanteri Huovinen and Sisa Ngebulana adrift in sixth and seventh respectively.

Ricky Collard fought his way from 19th on the grid to claim a distant eighth, with Thomas Maxwell and Ameya Vaidyanathan rounding out the top 10.

 

Leist wins delayed second British F3 race from 10th

Double R Racing’s Matheus Leist stormed from 10th on the grid to win a delayed second race of the British Formula 3 season-opening weekend at Snetterton.

After a four-hour scheduling delay due to stormy weather in the morning, the second race of the weekend got underway in the late afternoon, with Enzo Bortoleto on reverse-grid pole.

Leist started down in 10th, but was up to fourth by the end of the opening lap and by the time the field crossed the start-finish line for a second time he was past a battling Enaam Ahmed and Bortoleto and into the lead.

But Leist’s chance to break away from the chasing pack was stymied by an early safety car, as Carlin’s Ricky Collard, Fortec racer Tarun Reddy and HHC’s Omar Ismail were all eliminated from the race.

The race restarted with five minutes left on the clock after a lengthy clean-up period and Leist controlled the pace to cruise home to win by 1.4s from Ahmed.

Lanan’s Toby Sowery completed the podium with a late pass on Bortoleto – scoring the fastest lap of the opening two races to secure pole for the third race of the weekend.

Aleksanteri Huovinen, who finished second in race one, passed Sisa Ngebulana on the final lap to snatch fourth, with race one winner Lando Norris in sixth.

Thomas Maxwell, fading poleman Bortoleto, Thomas Randle and Jan Jonck completed the top 10.