Kirchhöfer Takes Race One Win as Teammate Penalized

Marvin Kirchhöfer took the win of race one from teammate Esteban Ocon as the Frenchman was handed a five-second time penalty to be added at the end of the race. This saw the ART driver drop from first to fourth after the flag had dropped. As an affect of this, Kirchhöfer and Emil Bernstorff were promoted up one step on the podium and Eriksson onto the podium as the championship leader was awarded the penalty. Ocon will still start the final race of the season with the championship lead, of six points, as Ghiotto finished behind in fifth, not able to get close enough to demote Ocon another position.

It was the start of the race that gained Ocon the five-second time penalty that would see him stripped of his win. Kevin Ceccon made an excellent start alongside Ocon as they made the race down to turn one. The Italian got alongside Ocon and was looking to make a move up the inside going through turn one. In a bid to keep position Ocon ran wide, going off the track and rejoining ahead of Ceccon. The stewards immediately investigated and claimed that Ocon had gained an advantage, handing him the time penalty. With no mandatory pit stops in GP3 it would have cost more time for Ocon to have taken the penalty during the race, so he set about trying to extend his lead by five seconds and limit the damage as much as possible.

Title rival Luca Ghiotto would have been in with the advantage had he not have fallen down to sixth off the start and was also focused on damage limitation. Bernstorff and Eriksson made the move passed the slow-moving Ghiotto off the line to take the positions and get themselves in the best place to optimize Ocon’s penalization. But Ocon was fighting hard, setting fastest lap after fastest lap once he was told of the time penalty. But it wasn’t enough to pull him ahead by five seconds, so teammate Kirchhöfer was gifted his fifth win of the season.

Kirchhöfer had to fight hard to keep a fast-advancing Bernstorff behind and retain his gifted win throughout the entire race as the Arden driver didn’t relieve the pressure at any point during the race. Half way through the race, however, Ceccon’s car retired with mechanical problems which brought out the virtual safety car. This gave Kirchhöfer a few laps of peace as no overtaking can be done under the virtual safety car and driver’s must reduce their pace to match a certain delta, meaning Bernstorff couldn’t keep pushing him. In the end the gap was six tenths between the pair, Kirchhöfer having seemed to calm down through the virtual safety car period and keep it clean to hold the Brit behind him.

Out of clear disagreement with the time penalty Ocon parked his car in the number one stop in Parc Ferme, even though he knew he would not be setting foot on the podium. He still goes into tomorrow’s final race with a six-point lead over Ghiotto, bringing the championship fight to the very end of the season. Campos’ Alex Palou will have reverse pole for tomorrow’s race as Ghiotto will start just ahead of Ocon in fourth. Tomorrow’s final race and championship decider begins at 8:55am GMT so make sure you join us then to find out who wins the title in what promises to be an exhilarating race.

(Image: www.gp3series.com)

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