British F3: Kjaergaard halves Lundqvist’s championship lead at Donington

Nicolai Kjaergaard closed the gap to championship rivals Linus Lundqvist as Billy Monger claimed a podium finish on his return to Donington Park.

It was an emotional weekend for Monger, whose last visit to Donington Park ended with life changing injuries. It was just over a year ago, but the 19-year-old has come a long way, which was proven when he claimed his maiden British Formula 3 pole in qualifying.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be a fairy tale return, with Kjaergaard snatching the lead off the line and Monger dropping back to sixth.

Kjaergaard spent the first half of the race building a gap at the front of the field while Jamie Caroline, who started sixth, worked his way up through the order.

It took Caroline less than four laps to pass a strong starting Ayrton Simmons to take second and he spent the rest of the race closing the gap to his team-mate ahead. He managed to reduce the 2.4s gap to less than a second, but ran out of laps before he could make a move.

Behind them, Monger managed to pass Manuel Maldonado to join the back of the fight for the final podium  position, where Simmons was battling with Krishnaraaj Mahadik behind him.

Simmons and Mahadik swapped positions a number of times before the Double R Racing driver managed to pull away from the British F4 graduate. Monger followed Mahadik past on the penultimate lap to finish fourth, with Simmons having to settle for fifth.

Meanwhile, championship leader Linus Lundqvist was struggling to recover from a poor qualifying. Lundqvist started 14th and enjoyed a strong opening lap to climb into the top 10, but struggled to keep up momentum as the race wore on. With an eighth place finish, Lundqvist’s 111 point lead at the top of the order was reduced to 89.

Things would only get worse for the championship leader in the second race of the weekend. Lundqvist enjoyed a strong start when the lights went out at the start of race two, but the red flag was quickly brought out due to damage on the circuit and the start was aborted.

The Swedish driver returned to his mid-field starting position, where he was caught up in a chaotic opening lap when the race restarted. Max Defourny collided with Arvin Esmaeili, causing his team mate to spin at Redgate. Esmaeili returned to the track where he collided with Lundqvist and Kush Maini. Hillspeed’s Jusuf Owega was also caught up in the incident and all four drivers were wiped out of the race while a safety car was brought out.

When the field was eventually able to go racing, pole sitter Sun Yue Yang made a good start to pull away from the remainder of the field. The Carlin driver was able to build a two second lead to second placed Pavan Ravishankar, who spent the race battling to keep Tom Gamble behind him. The pair held each other up, allowing F3 newcomer Hampus Ericsson to close in on the fight Ravishankar put up a strong defence, but Gamble was able to find a way through on the penultimate lap to steal second.

Ravishankar took third, ahead of Ericsson and Max Defourny, but the results wouldn’t stay that way for long. Gamble was excluded from the race due to a technical infringement, promoting Ericsson onto the podium in his F3 debut weekend. Defourney was handed a 10 second penalty for his part in the opening lap incident, dropping him back to 11th and promoting Sasakorn Chaimongkol and Mahadik into the top 5.

Monger could only manage a P14 in race two after a first lap pitstop, but his fastest lap of the race was enough to earn him his second pole of the weekend, making him only the second driver this season to secure more than one pole in a weekend.

The Carlin driver was able to hold onto the race lead for a little longer in race three, managing to keep Kjaergaard and Mahadik behind him on the opening lap, but his start came undone when a wide moment dropped him back to fourth.

Further back down the order Cian Carey had run into the gravel at the chicane while Esmaeili pulled into the pits with a right rear puncture. Just as the safety car was about to be deployed, Caroline – who had climbed up to P3 – also ran through the gravel. Caroline managed to keep going, but a trip over the kerbs had damaged his suspension and he was forced into the pit to retire.

Once again, damage to the track prompted an extended caution period, but this time the field was able to put in laps behind the safety car while the team welded down the kerb.

The race restarted with just eight minutes remaining. The top three quickly spread out, with Kjaergaard building a two second lead before the chequered flag.

In the closing stages of the race, Monger began to close the gap to Mahadik. The pole sitter pushed hard, trying to find a way back through, but Mahadik held on to second to round out his best weekend of the season.

Monger took the final step to take his third podium of the season, just ahead of Jamie Chadwick and Ericsson.

Defourney picked up sixth after a race long battle with Simmons and Yang.

In just one weekend, Kjaergaard has halved Lundqvist’s lead. Just 50 points separate the pair and, as Kjaergaard said after his race one victory, “you never know what could happen in the championship”.