PREMA Racing came out of Race 1 with a podium as the FIA Formula 3 Championship completed its maiden race at Albert Park in Melbourne. Starting from the 8th place on the grid, the British racer delivered a clever run in difficult conditions, with the action disrupted by multiple safety-car situations.

O’Sullivan made the most out of the race situations, mastering the first re-start to gain P3 early. In the final stages, he then delivered a sensational outside move to second place.

Paul Aron also navigated his way through the disruptions and close calls, capturing fourth place and valuable points. Teammate Beganovic also suffered from some close calls, including one with Aron. The Swede, however, kept his cool and ended up sixth, maximizing the points score and keeping his second place in the championship.

1 PAUL ARON

“Race 1 done in Melbourne, I think we already had good potential in Qualifying and we were going into the race quite confidently. We can be pretty happy with P4. We showed with a good pace, good overtakes and we came through the pack quite well. It’s also a great result for the team, Zak finished in 2nd, me in fourth and Dino in 6th so we scored good points and generally felt very strong. The race was interrupted quite a lot by safety cars, which made it quite difficult to keep the tyres into temperature and also had to manage the restarts, but in general, we overcame all the difficulties and brought home good points. The car balance was good, it seems we have the pace for tomorrow.”

Qualifying: P6
Starting position Race 1: P7
Fastest Lap: 1:33.408
Race 1: P4

2 DINO BEGANOVIC

“I think there are a lot of positives to take away. It was a bit unfortunate in the opening lap, we lost quite many positions, but then a very good recovery, the pace was really strong compared to the cars around and I’m really happy about it. There were many safety cars but we were always very strong with the restarts and that’s positive, because race 2 is not going to be super clean as well. It’s going to be important to get the tyres into the right window so we can attack and gain the most positions at the start and on the safety car restarts. We are looking forward to it.”

Qualifying: P8
Starting position Race 1: P5
Fastest Lap: 1:33.604
Race 1: P6

3 ZAK O’SULLIVAN

“We ended P2 from P8 on the grid. The pace is really strong and helped me make some moves through the field. It was nice and quite easy to overtake the DRS zones. I’m looking forward to the future starting from P5 tomorrow. It will be interesting to see, with cars of similar pace around us, but today’s one is a good result that got some points on the board.”

Qualifying: P5
Starting position Race 1: P8
Fastest Lap: 1:33.373
Race 2: P2

Source | Photo: PREMA Racing