Prema’s Dino Beganovic kept calm amid tricky conditions at Spa-Francorchamps to lead a one-two finish for his team in the Belgian Formula 3 Sprint as Championship leader Gabriele Mini extended his margin at the top of the standings with second.
Saturday’s Sprint at Spa was the first of four races that will bring to an end a tight 2024 Drivers’ title fight.
Going into the 12-lap race, seven points separated Mini (119), Luke Browning (115), Arvid Lindblad (113) and Leonardo Fornaroli (112) in the Drivers’ standings.
Well-poised to extend his slight advantage was Mini starting from the front row of the Sprint alongside reverse polesitter and Prema team-mate Beganovic.
Lindblad, the third Prema driver had a starting berth of 27th and it would take a miracle for him to get involved in the points-scoring action.
Browning and Fornaroli had more favourable starting positions, fifth and 10th respectively.
Rainfall overnight presented its challenges but despite the track conditions being mixed, the majority of the field opted for dry tyres.
At lights out the field squirmed away from the line and Mini wrestled his car well to snatch the holeshot from Beganovic.
Kicking up spray down the Kemmel straight showed the difficult task the drivers had on their hands, but Jenzer Motorsport’s Max Esterson didn’t make it that far, spinning at the top of Raidillon and prompting a Safety Car intervention.
Under caution, Mini led from Beganovic with Tim Tramnitz in third.
Trident’s Santiago Ramos was fourth with Browning in fifth, meanwhile, fellow title challengers Fornaroli and Lindblad were in ninth and 16th respectively with the latter taking nine 11 places on the first lap alone.
Two more tours of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit were completed under caution and with Lap 3 coming to an end, Mini was poised to lead the field back to green.
With conditions still mightily tricky it was no surprise to see the Italian forgo tactical restart games and simply lead away, but that left him vulnerable to Beganovic through Eau Rouge Raidillon and the Kemmel straight and the two Prema drivers swapped positions at Les Combes.
Lindblad meanwhile, continued his charge, rising to 15th at the restart and then 14th, past Nikita Bedrin, by Lap 5.
Browning was heading in the other direction, conceding fifth place to Noel Leon and then sixth to Sebastian Montoya.
On Lap 6, the Hitech driver continued to be vulnerable, taking to the run-off at Les Combes in stern defence over Trident’s Smai Meguetounif for seventh.
Browning lost out to find himself in eighth as Beganovic was instructed to push out in front to extend his leading margin which stood at just six-tenths as he started Lap 7.
Beganovic was indeed pushing, controlling a slight bout of oversteer as he came over the crest of Raidillon on Lap 8, but Mini kept on his tail with just two seconds covering the top four at this stage.
“Stay with him, put him under pressure,” was the call from Mini’s race engineer on Lap 9, as the gap to his leading team-mate was just under half a second.
With just a handful of laps to go, Lindblad’s charge was unrelenting, up to 12th, but it looked as if the Briton would miss out on claiming any points at this crucial stage in the title fight.
On Lap 10, Mini had to not only keep up the pressure on Beganovic but defend from Tramnitz, who was dancing in the mirrors of the Italian’s Prema machine down the Kemme straight and through Les Combes.
The aggressor on Lap 10, Tramnitz became the defender on Lap 11 as Leon tried his damndest to get into the podium picture, but to no avail.
This gave two Prema drivers a touch of breathing room as they came through to start the final tour of the iconic Spa circuit, with Mini holding a one-second advantage over Tramnitz.
Leon sliced through into third at Les Combes, displacing Tramnitz who then had Ramos for close company thereafter.
Tramnitz’s brave defence through the final sector brought a bottleneck of cars through the final chicane as Beganovic and Mini calmly crossed the line for a Prema one-two.
That left Leon to cooly complete the podium as Tramnitz valiantly held onto fourth ahead of Ramos, Meguetounif, Browning and Montoya.
Fornaroli remained in ninth throughout as Oliver Goethe completed the top-10.
Nine points for Mini as a result of second in the Sprint resulted in his tally in the Drivers’ standings rising to 128 points and his lead extending to eight over Browning (120).
Fornaroli fell to 13 points behind in third (115) with Lindblad falling to fourth in the standings with his tally of 113 points.
Thanks to his victory, Beganovic remains an outside title contender, fifth in the standings with 100 points to his name.
Update: Post-race penalties alter Sprint result and title picture
Mini’s position as championship leader was strengthened further post-race as the Stewards penalised several drivers for track limits violations.
Fornaroli, Meguetounif, Santiago Ramos, Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Martinius Stenshorne and Jenzer Motorsport’s Charlie Wurz were all handed five-second penalties for breaching track limits, with Mequetounif’s 30 seconds he was handed mid-race.
In addition, MP Motorsport’s Alex Dunne, Browning, VAR’s Tommy Smith and AIX Racing’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak also received five-second penalties for track limits violations with the latter’s added to a 10-second penalty picked up during the race.
Lastly, Mari Boya was guilty of eight track limits violations, incurring a 25-second penalty as a result.
The resulting penalties mean Montoya completes the top five behind Beganovic, Mini, Leon and Tramnitz with Goethe, Callum Voisin, Ramos, Fornaroli and Laurens van Hoepen completing the top-10.
Mini also now has a 13-point advantage over Browning in the Drivers’ standings with Fornaroli a further point back in third.
