Jack Doohan excelled in wet conditions to take his first FIA Formula 3 victory on Sunday morning at Paul Ricard.
The Australian started the race from fourth on the grid before powering his way through to get himself into the lead by Lap 15 and not lose the lead from there.
Rain poured onto the circuit minutes before the formation lap, causing a five-minute delay to allow the teams to make swift setup changes prior to the race start.
When the lights went out, Red Bull junior Dennis Hauger got off the line from second position better than pole-sitter Frederik Vesti to inherit an early lead from the Danish driver into Turn 1.
Doohan dropped to fifth by the end of the opening lap behind home-heroes Clement Novalak and Victor Martins.
A brief Virtual Safety Car was deployed shortly after on Lap 3 due to Caldwell stopping his PREMA on track with broken front suspension, costing him crucial points for the championship.
Following an overtake for third on Martins on Lap 7, Doohan closed in on Vesti three laps later before the Mercedes junior slid wide at Turn 3, gifting the position to the Trident driver.
Vesti’s race went from bad to worse on the next lap, as he went off the track at Turn 11 and falling to fifth behind the Alpine Academy drivers of Martins and Caio Collet.
Novalak was next to demote the ART pilot as Vesti fell to sixth at the finish.
Further ahead on Lap 15, Collet made an audacious lunge to the inside of his team-mate Martins at the last corner to go up to the podium places.
Doohan led Hauger home by over a second, with Collet, Martins, Novalak and Vesti next behind.
Ayumu Iwasa was seventh for Hitech, with Race 1 winner Alex Smolyar in eighth, Juan Manuel Correa a respectable ninth and Jak Crawford picking up the final point in tenth.
A couple of storming drives from Enzo Fittipaldi and Arthur Leclerc as well. Fittipaldi came home 11th from 21st on the grid, while Leclerc made up 17 places from 30th to 13th.
The championship standings see Hauger retain top spot, six points in front of second-place Martins.
Doohan’s victory elevates him up to third and only eight points off the lead.
The next round of the FIA Formula 3 Championship will be in a couple of weeks time at the Red Bull Ring, supporting the Austrian Grand Prix on the weekend of 2-4 July.
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