Spa British F3: Ed Jones wins as Roberto Merhi scores top points
Ed Jones cruised to victory in the first British Formula 3 Championship race of the Spa weekend, while it was Roberto Merhi who claimed maximum points
When Sean Gelael - the other driver using a European F3-spec Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen - bogged down at the start and dropped to fourth, that meant Jones was in the clear.
The safety car emerged immediately when Sam MacLeod came to grief at the first corner, deranging his left-front suspension, leaving Gelael less time to work his way past Merhi and John Bryant-Meisner.
The Indonesian took two laps to get past - taking each in turn on the run to Les Combes - and stabilised the gap to Jones for the rest of the race.
"It was quite straightforward," said Jones. "I was working hard throughout the race, because I was pushing to practise my race pace [after two months sidelined by injury]."
To his credit, the spectacular Merhi remained not far adrift of Gelael, the 2011 F3 Euro Series champion gradually drawing his Double R Racing Dallara-Mercedes clear of the Performance Racing Dallara-VW of Bryant-Meisner.
Indy Dontje made a great start to soar from ninth on the grid to fifth in his Motopark Dallara-VW.
Team-mate Nabil Jeffri closed on him towards the end of the race, but the Dutchman held firm and has earned pole position for this afternoon's reversed-grid race.
Andy Chang earned seventh, from a lonely Matt Rao and a similarly solo Peter Li.
Series leader Martin Cao was running ahead of Jeffri in sixth, but the Fortec Motorsport driver had stalled on the green-flag lap, getting away last before reclaiming his grid position, an action that was only ever going to earn him a drive-through penalty.
Cao managed to recover to 11th (ninth out of those scoring points), managing on the final lap to insert himself between a race-long tussle between Russian Nikita Zlobin and American Camren Kaminsky.
That at least allowed Cao to retain a slender two-point advantage in the championship over Rao, with MacLeod and Chang only seven further adrift.
Results - 12 laps: Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Ed Jones Carlin Dallara-VW 30m27.854s 2. Sean Gelael Carlin Dallara-VW +2.473s 3. Roberto Merhi Double R Dallara-Merc +5.451s 4. John Bryant-Meisner Performance Dallara-VW +10.050s 5. Indy Dontje Motopark Dallara-VW +21.085s 6. Nabil Jeffri Motopark Dallara-VW +21.952s 7. Andy Chang Double R Dallara-Merc +25.702s 8. Matt Rao Fortec Dallara-Merc +29.516s 9. Peter Li Carlin Dallara-VW +32.753s 10. Nikita Zlobin ADM Dallara-VW +38.468s 11. Martin Cao Fortec Dallara-Merc +38.980s 12. Camren Kaminsky Double R Dallara-Merc +39.642s 13. Kang Ling ADM Dallara-VW +45.212s Retirements: Sam MacLeod Carlin Dallara-VW 0 laps
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