In the fourth race of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship season, British driver Lando Norris (Carlin) came out on top against Indian Jehan Daruvala (Carlin), who had started from pole position. At the 5.793 kilometres long Monza Grand Prix circuit, Austrian Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin) finished third. While 17-year-old Norris already scored his second win of the season, 18-year-old Daruvala and 19-year-old Habsburg both scored their maiden FIA Formula 3 European Championship podium finishes. In the drivers’ standings, Norris and Joel Eriksson (Motopark) are now tied on points, but based on his two victories against the single win for the Swede, the British rookie currently is the championship leader. 

In bright sunshine in Monza’s royal park, the FIA Formula 3 European Championship drivers started into their fourth race of the season. Jehan Daruvala, a protégé of the Force India Formula 1 team, took the lead from the best starting grid position while Lando Norris initially slotted into fourth place behind Daruvala, Jake Dennis (Carlin) and Ferdinand Habsburg. Soon, however, the McLaren junior started making his way up to the front and already showed up in second place after lap three. Later on, the two rookie drivers Daruvala and Norris became involved in a duel in which Norris overtook his team-mate for the lead on lap 16. Even though he was unable to pull clear from the Indian, Norris’s second win of the season was not under threat anymore.

Behind Norris and Daruvala, Habsburg and Eriksson battled for the final slot on the podium. The Swede was in third place for some laps, but with three laps remaining, the Austrian overtook the best rookie from 2016 again so that Eriksson eventually finished fourth.

Jake Dennis, who had to defend his fifth place from charging Prema drivers for many laps, even had more work to do. He eventually had to park his car in the pits after contact with an opponent. Guanyu Zhou (Prema Powerteam) was classified fifth from Mick Schumacher (Prema Powerteam) and Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam). Ralf Aron (Hitech Grand Prix), Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam) and Jake Hughes (Hitech Grand Prix) rounded out the top ten in an entertaining race with many position fights.

Lando Norris (Carlin): “Once again, I didn’t have the best of starts. Then, however, I did my utmost and finally I was able to overtake Jehan after a battle that went on for several laps. I am happy with my victory and also with the fact that Carlin drivers locked out the first three places. For the team, such a result is very important, especially after last year that didn’t go too well. For this race, our team boss had given us only one instruction, which was to avoid a collision. The rest, we had to settle between ourselves on the track.”

Jehan Daruvala (Carlin): “I was in the lead for a long time, but I finished second. Therefore, I am having mixed feelings. Initially, things were going really well for me and because the drivers behind me were fighting, I was able to pull a slight gap. Then, however, Lando came to the fore and the slipstream he had made it difficult for me to defend the lead. Currently, there are some good drivers from India and we hope to be able to make our sport more popular in India by scoring good results.”

Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin): “I already knew that fifth place on the grid was a good position to score a decent result. During the race, I remained focussed and thus I was able to get my position back from Joel Eriksson to score my maiden FIA Formula 3 European Championship podium finish. Of course, I am happy with that, especially as the season opener at Silverstone was anything but perfect from my perspective.”