Euro F3: Schumacher Puts One Hand On Title Following Austrian Double

The rich vein of form continued for Mick Schumacher as 2 wins and a second at the Red Bull Ring leaves him in a commanding 49-point lead in the FIA European F3 Championship, with just 75 points left on the table at the final round in Hockenheim.

Rival Dan Ticktum struggled in qualifying and couldn’t find the necessary pace to move forward to the front and is now left with a mountain to climb at the final round.

Joe Ellis takes you through the events of the Austrian weekend, as Schumacher continued his qualifying dominance.

Race One

Schumacher and teammate Robert Shwartzman picked up where they left off at the Nurburgring lining up 1 and 2 and they both made great starts from the front row, holding position into turn 1. The best start, however, was made by home hero Ferdinand Habsburg who, in soaking wet conditions, found the sweet spot off the line to jump from P13 to P4. He then passed Marcus Armstrong for P3 on the next lap and looked like no one could stop him, but an error, unseen by cameras, dropped him back to 6th.

This let Alex Palou into 4th at the time and the Spaniard made light work of Armstrong who struggled for much of the race, briefly dropping to 5th behind the recovering Habsburg before retaking the place at turn 4. A super battle then broke out further down as Jehan Daruvala somehow defended his position for an entire lap against a charging Ticktum, but made a mistake at turn 1 allowing the Red Bull junior to finally get past into turn 4.

No one could stop Schumacher though who led his teammate home for a 1-2 finish for Prema. Podium: Schumacher, Shwartzman, Palou

Race Two

This was the race that really swung the championship Schumacher’s way, as he again led from pole, this time ahead of Armstrong and then Shwartzmann. Further down, a slow Sebastian Fernandez at turn 4 was collected by an unsighted Keyvan Soori putting both out of the race and bringing out the safety car emerged for the first time.

At the restart, Schumacher held off a timid attack by Armstrong as Juri Vips passed teammate Jonathan Aberdein for 4th at turn 1. The race of attrition further down continued as Daruvala collided with teammate Nikita Troitskiy, sending the latter airbourne and out of the race with broken suspension. The race continued before Artem Petrov and Palou also made contact, putting both cars out of the race and the safety car emerged yet again.

The big moment of the weekend came at the final restart as Ticktum tried to overtake Daruvala whilst Sacha Fenestraz made it 3-wide between turns 3 and 4. The latter touched with Ticktum, sending them both spinning and Daruvala was caught up in the incident, leaving all 3 unable to make the finish. The race then ended under safety car giving Schumacher another 25 points and leaving Ticktum looking to cling on to whatever he could for race 3.There was some uplifting news from the second race as Sophia Floersch claimed her first point in the series, benefitting from others misfortune to take P10.

Podium: Schumacher, Armstrong, Shwartzman

Race Three

It was a third pole position from 3 for Schumacher but Shwartzman finally beat him to the first turn to take the lead and he never looked back. Vips was forced wide at turn 4 on the opening lap dropping him from P4 to P10.

Ticktum finally pieced together a good race, expertly overtaking Armstrong around the outside of turn 4 to get into 4th, but he couldn’t then pass his teammate Aberdein for the podium he needed. In a race of little action, Carlin duo Habsburg and Daruvala teamed up to dispatch of Ralf Aron who was unusually quiet all weekend for 6th and 7th on the road whilst teammate Fenestraz retired with mechanical gremlins.

Other than that, it was follow the leader home as Shwartzmann finally took his first win of the year after so many nearly moments.

Podium: Shwartzmann, Schumacher, Aberdein

The final round of the season and indeed the European Formula 3 series as we know it takes place at Hockenheim, Germany on the 13th-14th October with Ticktum needing a miracle to stop the Schumacher hype train.