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Monza FIA F3: Red Bull and Honda junior Tsunoda gets first win

Red Bull and Honda Formula 1 junior Yuki Tsunoda took a brilliant first FIA Formula 3 race win at Monza from sixth on the grid in mixed conditions

HWA's Jake Hughes took the lead at the start and edged away to a gap of nearly three seconds as a strong battle for second ensued on a soaking wet track.

Jenzer Motorsport driver Tsunoda edged clear of his rivals in that battle just before the halfway point and began to reel in Hughes by as much as 0.4s per lap as the track dried, moving into range with eight laps to go.

He dived past Hughes into the first chicane on lap 15 of 22 and began to build a gap, fearing the progress of his rapid Red Bull counterpart Liam Lawson.

Lawson - who also competes in EuroFormula Open alongside Tsunoda - got an awful start from second on the grid in his MP Motorsport car but worked his way back through, culminating in a pass on Hughes one lap after Tsunoda had made the same move.

Tsunoda built a gap of over a second to Lawson, who then closed back in, but ultimately he ran out of time and fell 1.3s short of victory. The result also the Jenzer team's first win of the season.

Hughes came under pressure from the last car in the train, MP's Richard Verschoor, but just held on as the duo ran nose-to-tail to the flag.

On the last lap Pedro Piquet repassed Leonardo Pulcini at Turn 1 to claim fifth, with Spa race one winner Piquet unable to follow his 2018 GP3 victory at Monza this weekend. Pulcini salvaged points in sixth after a poor qualifying session had left him 27th on Saturday's grid.

Polesitter and Sauber Junior Team driver Fabio Scherer began to drop back as the track dried and had to settle for seventh, narrowly holding off championship leader Robert Shwartzman on the last lap.

Race one winning Ferrari junior Shwartzman was unable to please the Tifosi as much as on Saturday and did not progress from his starting position of eighth. But he remains strongly positioned to win the series' inaugural title in the finale on his home turf at Sochi at the end of this month.

A poor run out of Ascari from Shwartzman as he challenged Scherer almost handed eighth to ART Grand Prix's Renault junior Christian Lundgaard, who missed out by less than a tenth of a second in a drag race to the line.

Logan Sargeant was one of the quickest drivers in the wet when he found clean air, and managed to take 10th despite an eventful race that involved multiple excursions.

Championship contender Juri Vips started only 25th following a Saturday crash. The Red Bull junior managed to reach 15th in the space of two laps then struggled to make further progress. A late charge eventually got him to 11th.

Race two result

Pos Driver Team Laps Gap
1 Yuki Tsunoda Jenzer Motorsport 22 41m11.470s
2 Liam Lawson MP Motorsport 22 1.312s
3 Jake Hughes HWA 22 2.018s
4 Richard Verschoor MP Motorsport 22 2.803s
5 Pedro Piquet Trident 22 6.861s
6 Leonardo Pulcini Hitech GP 22 7.930s
7 Fabio Scherer Charouz 22 14.329s
8 Robert Shwartzman Prema Racing 22 14.952s
9 Christian Lundgaard ART Grand Prix 22 15.019s
10 Logan Sargeant Carlin 22 16.320s
11 Juri Vips Hitech GP 22 16.417s
12 Felipe Drugovich Carlin 22 19.285s
13 Jehan Daruvala Prema Racing 22 22.373s
14 Marcus Armstrong Prema Racing 22 23.517s
15 Niko Kari Trident 22 25.101s
16 Devlin Defrancesco Trident 22 25.759s
17 Raoul Hyman Charouz 22 25.970s
18 Lirim Zendeli Charouz 22 30.267s
19 Yifei Ye Hitech GP 22 35.425s
20 Simo Laaksonen MP Motorsport 22 36.412s
21 Max Fewtrell ART Grand Prix 22 37.328s
22 Keyvan Andres HWA 22 38.842s
23 Giorgio Carrara Jenzer Motorsport 22 44.302s
24 Andreas Estner Jenzer Motorsport 22 47.238s
25 Alessio Deledda Campos Racing 22 1m16.932s
26 Sebastian Fernandez Campos Racing 22 1m37.975s
27 Bent Viscaal HWA 21 1 Lap
28 David Beckmann ART Grand Prix 21 1 Lap
29 Teppei Natori Carlin 21 1 Lap
- Alex Peroni Campos Racing 0 Withdrawn

Drivers' standings

Pos Driver Points
1 Robert Shwartzman 180
2 Jehan Daruvala 147
3 Juri Vips 122
4 Marcus Armstrong 119
5 Christian Lundgaard 97
6 Pedro Piquet 90
7 Jake Hughes 74
8 Yuki Tsunoda 67
9 Leonardo Pulcini 66
10 Max Fewtrell 57
11 Liam Lawson 40
12 Richard Verschoor 31
13 David Beckmann 20
14 Niko Kari 15
15 Bent Viscaal 10
16 Felipe Drugovich 8
17 Fabio Scherer 7
18 Lirim Zendeli 6
19 Logan Sargeant 5
20 Alex Peroni 5
21 Simo Laaksonen 2
22 Teppei Natori 1

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