Van Amersfoort Racing’s Noel León led an Imola FIA Formula 3 race almost from lights to flag amid a flurry of Safety Cars, but despite losing out to Oliver Goethe across the chequered flag, inherited the lead thanks to a post-race penalty for the Campos driver.
There were as many as four Safety Cars throughout the 18-lap Sprint at Imola, but León was the most accomplished at dealing with every restart, having seized the lead early on.
Polish Red Bull Junior Kacper Sztuka lined up on the reverse grid pole for the Sprint, looking to score his first points of the 2024 campaign.
Sztuka was joined on the front row by León, with Tim Tramnitz and joint championship leader Luke Browning lining up on the second row.
Browning was tied with Italian Leonardo Fornaroli heading into the race who would have a harder task to score points from 11th on the grid.
Sztuka got a good launch at lights out but León was tucked right behind the polesitter and took the lead through Tamburello (Turn 2/3), streaking clear early on.
Meanwhile, Sztuka fell behind Tramnitz and Goethe to fourth in the opening exchanges.
It wasn’t long until the Safety Car was called on Lap 1, with Mari Boya out of the race in the gravel, tagged from behind by Tommy Smith (who was later handed a 10-second time penalty) in the Villeneuve chicane (Turn 5/6).
The Safety Car prepped to come in at the end of Lap 3 of 18 with Browning rounding out the top five as the field readied to go to green.
León went early on the restart, catching the rest of the competition napping.
Further down the pack, Prema’s Dino Beganovic successfully pipped Laurens van Hoepen to take sixth as Sami Meguetounif and Gabriele Mini engaged in a scrap behind.
As Meguetounif, van Hoepen and Mini scrapped, the Safety Car was called into action again on Lap 5 as Rodin’s Callum Voisin found himself in the barriers on the outside of Tosa (Turn 7).
Replays showed Voisin was helped into the barriers by Jenzer’s Charlie Wurz before the Safety Car ended on Lap 7.
León played a different tactic this time around, waiting until the last possible moment to get back up to racing speeds, under pressure from the three Red Bull Juniors (Tramnitz, Goethe, Sztuka) behind him.
There was drama further back as Meguetounif found himself spinning back into the gravel at Tamburello after clattering into the back of Beganovic’s Prema.
The Safety Car was called into action for the third time as a result on Lap 8, as Meguetounif complained over his team radio that Beganovic had moved under braking.
At the end of Lap 10, the Safety Car came back in and León once again maintained his lead at the restart.
This time around, the field managed to make its way through the first sequence of corners cleanly.
León was comfortable out in front, breaking the DRS after a single lap of green flag running on the third restart whilst Mini put a gutsy move on van Hoepen to take seventh place at the Villeneuve chicane.
On Lap 13, Goethe decided he was best placed to chase the leader, moving ahead of Tramnitz at Tamburello.
But then, the Safety Car was called for the fourth time after Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak briefly went off-road in Sector 3, before rejoining to circle back around to the pits.
That meant León’s lead was eroded once again and Goethe was now placed to put in a challenge.
The Safety Car ended on Lap 14 and León led the field back to green with Goethe and Tramnitz on his tail.
Sztuka in fourth was caught napping, leaving a massive gap to the front three meaning the rest of the field was in a separate race with just a handful of laps to go.
As ever, León nailed the restart and as DRS was reopened for seemingly the millionth time on Lap 16, the Mexican was more than a second ahead.
Sztuka’s error on the final Safety Car restart left him vulnerable and Beganovic duly took fourth off of him at Tamburello on Lap 17.
But when Browning tried the same at Tosa, he found himself in the gravel as an opportune look down the inside of Sztuka didn’t pay off.
That deployed the Virtual Safety Car to dilute proceedings on the final lap of what was a stop/start Sprint.
But with Goethe right on the tail of León, the VSC ending with a handful of corners to go turned the race on its head.
Goethe pounced on the run down to Rivazza to retake the lead, but the stewards didn’t look kindly on his handling of the VSC period.
Goethe, first across the line, was demoted to second after a safety car infringement landed him with a five-second time penalty.
This handed the win back to León with Tramnitz completing the podium in third.
Beganovic took fourth for Prema with polesitter Sztuka completing the top-five, becoming the first Polish driver to score points in F3.
A spirited drive rewarded Mini with sixth ahead of near race-long rival van Hoepen in seventh.
Arvin Lindblad, Nikita Bedrin and Santiago Ramos completed the top-10.
