Second for Norris in Eventful Monza Race

Carlin’s Lando Norris added to his race one win yesterday with a second place in race two of the weekend in Monza, Italy.  The McLaren-Honda junior claimed another strong FIA Formula 3 European Championship result, in what was an eventful race for his team mates.  Ferdinand Habsburg fought back from 12th on lap one to fifth at the flag, while Jehan Daruvala claimed eighth after a busy race.  Jake Dennis failed to finish after contact from another car left him with a rear puncture.

As the second race of the weekend got underway, Norris lost out at the start and briefly fell to fourth, before climbing back up to third by the end of lap one.  Dennis made another good start and was fifth while Daruvala was seventh.  Habsburg lost out, fighting for position the Carlin man was pushed aggressively wide into the gravel and managing to re-join had lost several places down in 12th.

In a replay of yesterday, Norris and Callum Ilott were fighting for position, but it was the F3 rookie who came out on top, holding onto his third place.  Dennis, Daruvala and Habsburg meanwhile were involved in plenty of wheel to wheel racing, the trio very much in the racing action.

A determined Norris set about catching Mick Schumacher, setting the fastest lap of the race on his way to pulling up on the back of the Prema driver.  Applying plenty of pressure, Norris made his way through after a lock up for the young German to take second.  Dennis meanwhile lost fourth to Max Gunther, while Daruvala and Habsburg were fighting for eighth, a battle that was eventually won by the Austrian.

Just as yesterday, Dennis found himself surrounded by red Prema cars.  Habsburg was also fighting a Prema, this time the car of Guanyu Zhou, taking eighth from the Chinese driver on lap 12.  The intense racing continued for Dennis, who was now duelling with second year driver Harrison Newey, with Dennis making it past the Van Amersfoort driver.  Newey made contact with Dennis’ rear tyre though – breaking his wing in the process and sending Dennis tumbling down the order with a slow puncture.  Finally forced to pit, Dennis retired well out of the points.

In the melee surrounding the Dennis and Newey fight, Habsburg had stayed clear of any further incidents and had moved up to fifth and not content with that, had his sights set on the fourth place occupied by Gunther.  Daruvala meanwhile was running in eighth.

At the front, Norris had started to close in on leader Joel Eriksson, reducing the gap with every sector, but was running out of time to mount a serious attack.  Despite several fast laps, the F3 rookie had to be content with a strong second place.  Habsburg duly claimed fifth with Daruvala seventh.

Speaking about his race, Norris said, “My weak point at the moment seems to be the starts, after qualifying went well yesterday.  The start doesn’t seem to go too well for me, which means I’m having to come from so far back during the races. I haven’t had a race yet where I’ve made a good start – I keep making life difficult for myself!  Had I made a better start, I could have had a chance possibly to overtake Joel, but he was also very fast this morning. We were on a slightly different strategy with tyres, so he had a slightly better tyres, but I think our pace was pretty even.  I’m quite happy with second, but hope the next race can go just a bit better.”

The final FIA F3 race of the weekend will take place today at 15.15 local time.