Taito Kato claimed an incredible victory in the F3 Sprint Race, fighting off championship leader Freddie Slater. The race was chaotic and featured two Safety Cars for huge incidents.

The Opening Laps

Brando Badoer started from pole for the F3 Sprint Race and was able to maintain his lead as several drivers behind locked up into Turn 1.

Lap 2 saw Badoer go wide several times, allowing for Pedrot Clerot to close the gap to his Rodin teammate before the Brazilian driver took the lead.

Tuukka Taponen was charging behind and moved up to second position.

Lap 4 saw the first interruption with a Safety Car called following a massive crash for Fernando Barichello. At the same time, Alessandro Giusti took the lead of the Sprint Race.

The Safety Car came to an end on Lap 6 and immediately Giusti was able to get away from the other drivers. A yellow flag was flown soon after the restart, however, as Maciej Gładysz stopped on track.

A short Virtual Safety Car was called but when it came to an end, Clerot was able to take the lead.

The Second Safety Car

On Lap 10, Clerot’s lead was taken away as his car began to emit smoke and a fire was started. Giusto re-claimed the lead of the race before a yellow flag became a Safety Car and the race was paused.

The cause of the Safety Car was a huge crash between Gerard Xie and Michael Shin with the DAMS car becoming airborne before hitting the wall. Both drivers were able to get out of their cars unassisted and reported that they were okay.

On Lap 13, racing resumed and the final six laps were chaotic. Freddie Slater had fought his way up from twelfth to second during the Sprint Race,

On the final lap, Hiyu Yamakoshi and Giusti battled hard for third place. Yevan David also started to close in on the battle. Meanwhile, Slater and Kato battled hard for first place.

Eventually, it was Kato who took the win with Slater in second and Yamakoshi in third.