Taito Kato takes his maiden F3 win for ART in Monza. He started in ninth and climbed the field to stand on the top step of the podium alongside Freddie Slater and Hiyu Yamakoshi.
Rodin’s Brando Badoer started on sprint pole following Matteo De Palo’s disqualification from qualifying.
When the lights went out, Badoer had a strong start and led Clerot and Taponen into turn one. Several drivers behind went off or cut the chicane, but overall the start was clean. Giusti cleared Barrichello for fourth and Rivera made up two spots to claim sixth.
After a few laps, a DRS train formed throughout the entire field. Badoer ran wide out of Ascari and gifted the lead to Clerot.
Ugochukwu and De Palo had made up two spots while Nael had made up six. Stromsted had dropped from sixteenth to twentieth.
At the end of lap three, the chaos started to unfold. Taponen made a move on Badoer into the Parabolica and Giusti made a move for second. The DRS train caused a massive accident as the drivers barrelled into turn one.
The incident ended Barrichello’s race, meanwhile Badoer picked up front wing damage forcing him to pit. Replays show Badoer squeezing Barrichello onto the grass. The front runners had to avoid the incident, Taponen ran through the run off after picking up damage and Giusti inherited the lead but still had to cut the chicane.
A safety car was called and the race restarted on lap 7. Kato passed Rivera as Colnaghi moved passed Yamakoshi into turn one. There were a number of tangles in the middle of the pack resulting in damage. Gładysz retired and Stromsted dropped even further down the pack to 25th. A Virtual Safety Car (VSC) was called.
Clerot took the lead on the VSC restart as Rivera got past Yamakoshi for fourth. Slater had put himself into sixth and Nael picked up 15 places in 9 laps. Kato had made a move for second and shortly after, race leader Clerot suffered an engine failure forcing him to retire.
The was an even bigger problem as Shin and Xie had a massive collision into turn 1 that sent one airborne. Thankfully, both drivers came out of the incident unharmed. As a result the safety car was back in action
Badoer received a five second penalty for his collision with Barrichello.
On lap 14, the race got underway once again. Rivera and Kato went side by side into turn one with Rivera going off.
The top four managed to build a gap.
Kato took his first win in F3 with Championship leader Slater following him in second. Yamakoshi hung onto third. David, Giusti, Colnaghi, Rivera, Deligny, Lacorte and del Pino round out the top ten.
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