Trident’s Sami Meguetounif earned his first victory in FIA Formula 3 during today’s Feature race

Finlay McSporran
Published: 16:58, 19th May 2024

His teammate Leonardo Fornaroli takes the lead of the championship after finishing ahead of his rivals

Race Report

Santiago Ramos held the lead into turn one with his Trident teammates right behind him. Yesterdays sprint race winner Oliver Goethe had made up three places on the first lap and on the second lap passed Lindblad to take P4.

On lap 3 Fornaroli passed teammate Ramos to take the lead whilst the other Trident of Meguetounif was passed by Goethe as he improved to the podium.

The Redbull junior was on the move once again, passing pole-sitter Ramos at Tamborello to take 2nd. That quickly became first as on lap 6 race leader Fornaroli’s engine cut out, dropping him down to 5th before it thankfully came back on again.

Fornaroli was quick to make up the places he’d lost, passing Lindblad on lap 9 whilst behind them Luke Browning had now passed Beganovic for 6th and then Lindblad for 5th on lap 11.

By lap 14 Fornaroli had caught up to his teammate Ramos, passing him to take 3rd place. The pole-sitter Ramos beginning to struggle at this point, having been passed by Meguetounif on lap 12 he was now coming under pressure from Browning, who passed him on lap 15.

Back in front, Meguetounif had now closed the gap to Goethe and by lap 18 was in DRS range, taking the lead with 5 laps to go. Fornaroli was also closing in on Goethe but couldn’t find a way past him.

On lap 22 Meguetounif crossed the line in first to secure his first ever F3 race win, whilst Goethe managed to hold off Fornaroli to take second. With his P3 results ahead of title rivals Browning, Beganovic and Mini Fornaroli now has a 3 point lead over Browning in the championship.

Race Result

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Sami Meguetounif	Trident	35m12.897s
2	Oliver Goethe	Campos Racing	+2.791s
3	Leonardo Fornaroli	Trident	+3.368s
4	Luke Browning	Hitech GP	+3.686s
5	Dino Beganovic	Prema	+5.724s
6	Gabriele Mini	Prema	+6.972s
7	Arvid Lindblad	Prema	+11.575s
8	Santiago Ramos	Trident	+12.736s
9	Mari Boya	Campos Racing	+13.098s
10	Sebastian Montoya	Campos Racing	+14.769s
11	Tim Tramnitz	MP Motorsport	+18.634s
12	Sophia Floersch	Van Amersfoort Racing	+21.658s
13	Laurens van Hoepen	ART Grand Prix	+22.654s
14	Martinius Stenshorne	Hitech GP	+23.516s
15	Kacper Sztuka	MP Motorsport	+23.554s
16	Alex Dunne	MP Motorsport	+24.295s
17	Matias Zagazeta	Jenzer Motorsport	+25.720s
18	Cian Shields	Hitech GP	+29.529s
19	Noel Leon	Van Amersfoort Racing	+30.045s
20	Christian Mansell	ART Grand Prix	+31.500s
21	Max Esterson	Jenzer Motorsport	+32.271s
22	Joshua Dufek	AIX Racing	+35.023s
23	Piotr Wisnicki	Rodin Motorsport	+37.573s
24	Charlie Wurz	Jenzer Motorsport	+40.316s
25	Joseph Loake	Rodin Motorsport	+40.585s
26	Nikola Tsolov	ART Grand Prix	+42.360s
27	Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak	AIX Racing	+51.428s
28	Tommy Smith	Van Amersfoort Racing	+59.188s
29	Callum Voisin	Rodin Motorsport	+1m16.623s
30	Nikita Bedrin	AIX Racing	+1 lap
Fastest lap: Goethe, 1m33.817s Championship standings: 1 Fornaroli 52   2 Browning 49   3 Beganovic 45   4 Mini 45   5 Goethe 41   6 Meguetounif 38   7 Lindblad 32   8 Tramnitz 30   9 van Hoepen 22   10 Mansell 20

Up next:

Next week F3 heads to Monaco for the fourth round of the season as the championship battle starts to heat up.