The opening race of this weekend’s FIA Formula 3 Championship weekend handed good results to PREMA Racing in Melbourne. Bahrain Sprint Race winner Arvid Lindblad delivered another brilliant podium starting from fifth place on the grid and even had the chance to go for victory. A safety car while he was on the attack, less than one second from the lead, impacted his plans late in the race, second place at Albert Park is another positive result for the young driver.

Dino Beganovic and Gabriele Minì crossed the finish line in P6 and P7 respectively in a hard-fought race for both of them and for the field in general. Despite a difficult start, the Swede managed to make great gains. While he seemed to claim his first points finish of the year after the ill-fated Bahrain race, a penalty for not leaving enough space demoted him outside the top-10.

Gabriele Minì thus inherited the sixth position, which he was contending with his teammate in the last corner. Taking off from the sixth row, the Italian achieved more points as he made the most of an attacking attitude and the race situations. Having secured a front-row spot for the Feature Race, he will have a chance to put the same attitude to work tomorrow.

1 DINO BEGANOVIC

“Quite a hectic sprint race here in Melbourne. Not a great start, fell a bit behind at the beginning of the race, then I was able to recover a bit after the safety car. The tyre degradation was definitely more than what we expected, I think for everybody. In the end I think the pace looked really strong, specially after the safety car when we got the tyres back and we recovered some positions. We definitely learned something for tomorrow where the big points are so we have something to look at.”

Qualifying: P3
Starting Position Race 1: P10
Fastest lap: 1:33.344
Race 1: P13

2 GABRIELE MINÌ

“It was a good race, we had a good start gaining straight away one position. The pace was also good gaining a few positions, making a few overtakes by also making the most of the others’ mistakes. In the end we got to a point where both the car in front of me and the one behind were far away, then we got the safety car that helped us quite a lot with the tyre graining and cooled down the tyres. In the last two laps it was a final showdown, I tried to go for an overtake, but sadly I got pushed a bit wide and dirtied my tyres and couldn’t keep the car on the line for the last corner losing a position. Overall though I think it was quite a positive race today and looking forward to tomorrow.”

Qualifying: P2
Starting Position Race 1: P11
Fastest lap: 1:33.063
Race 1: P6

3 ARVID LINDBLAD

“Good race today with solid points, P5 to P2. I think the pace was pretty strong all throughout. It was a shame with the safety car towards the end as the pace was very good at that point, I was catching up the leader but anyway I think it was a really good race, the car was good so we’ll analyse what we can do for tomorrow to do a good result again.”

Qualifying: P7
Starting Position Race 1: P5
Fastest lap: 1:33.716
Race 1: P2

Source | Photo: PREMA Racing