Untouchable Lawson wins first ever Euroformula race at Pau

18.05.2019

Having stuck with slick tyres while others chose wets, Liam Lawson made the most of his pole advantage at Pau to take a dominant 16.1 second victory.

The New Zealander was untouchable from the very first lap, and extended his championship lead with his second win of the season.

After jumping past team-mate Marino Sato at the start, Julian Hanses took his first podium finish in Formula 3 in second place. Sato completed the podium, meaning Motopark filled the top three spots.

Chasing Sato for third was Teo Martín Motorsport’s Lukas Dunner, although his efforts were stymied by lapped traffic. Several drivers had gambled on wet tyres for the start, but after several laps chose to pit and ended up rejoining the race out of position, adding to the excitement.

Linus Lundqvist finished a distant fifth for Double R Racing, benefitting from Carlin’s Nicolai Kjaergaard crashing out midway through the race, but had Fortec Motorsports’ Cameron Das right on his gearbox at the end.

The second Fortec car of Calan Williams, who crashed in qualifying, picked up seventh and was the last driver on the lead lap.

Aldo Festante was ahead of Williams for much of the race, but made a late mistake that put him just ahead of the lapped Billy Monger. The Carlin driver made a supreme start to the race, battling for sixth from 10th on the grid, but his choice of wet tyres proved to be the wrong one and he quickly lost time and was forced to pit. Monger did at least pick up the third spot in the rookie classification behind Lawson and Lundqvist.

After making his stop to change tyres, Teo Martín’s Guilherme Samaia raced with the points scorers throughout the race, despite being a lap down, and benefitted from crashes and retirements to snatch the final point, right ahead of Rui Andrade (Drivex).

Jack Doohan and Christian Hahn joined Kjaergaard in being caught out by the challenges of the classic street circuit, while Yuki Tsunoda pulled into the pits to retire after setting fastest lap.