Vergne takes victory and Jaafar first F3 podium

Jean-Eric Vergne bounced back from a disappointing first race yesterday with victory in race two at Magny Cours this morning. In a hectic British F3 race which was red flagged following a substantial accident involving James Calado, there was plenty of overtaking action involving Vergne, Jazeman Jaafar and Lucas Foresti who put in a stunning drive from the back of the grid to eighth place. While Vergne took victory number three and extended his lead in the championship, Jaafar took his first F3 podium in third place.

Jazeman Jaafar (MAL) Carlin Dallara Volkswagen Credit: British F3

Jaafar coped well with the pressure of his first F3 pole this morning and led the field into the first corner despite pressure from team mate Calado alongside him. The two were evenly matched over the opening two laps, but contact between the pair at the Adelaide hairpin resulted in Calado being launched into the gravel where his car rolled and landed upside down. The race was red flagged while marshals extracted Calado - who was thankfully unhurt - and cleared away the damaged Racing Steps car from the gravel trap.

At the restart Jaafar again made a good getaway but lost out to Gabriel Dias, who was later deemed to have made a jump start. Filing into second place, Jaafar had team mate Vergne on his tail who managed to get past a lap later. Behind the leaders Foresti was continuing his charge through the field and was already 11th, while Svendsen-Cook was also flying and was up to 12th from his 18th place grid slot.

With Vergne chasing down Dias, Jaafar was busy defending from Oliver Webb, who finally made it through towards the end of the race. At the front, Vergne and Dias were still equally matched and despite Vergne taking the lead with two laps to go, the Frenchman handed back the place having cut the chicane. Unaware of a time penalty handed to Dias, Vergne still believed he was fighting for the lead and stayed close to Dias until the chequered flag. With Dias then handed a one minute penalty for his earlier jump start, Vergne was promoted to race winner, with Jaafar moving up to third to his first F3 podium.

Speaking about the race, Vergne said, "My first start was good, I passed Calado on the outside, but on the straight he was quicker than me and then I was kind of in sandwich between James and Jazeman and I had to back off to avoid a crash. That put be back to fourth. Then unfortunately James has his accident, which meant the race was red flagged.

"At the restart and I had a very bad start, I dropped back really far and was sixth or something, but I came back quickly and overtook quite a few cars in the first few corners. Then I was able to close in on Dias very quickly and tried to overtake him but he wasn't making many mistakes. I was in his slip stream on the straight and passed him on the outside but the move wasn't completely done and he was close in the chicane so I had to run wide to avoid making contact with him. To be sure that I wouldn't get penalised I let him past again. I didn't realise that Dias had a time penalty, so I was quite a shocked when my engineer told me I had won! I am happy because I had an awesome car and things should be good for the race this afternoon."

Trevor Carlin added, "It was a really hard fought race this morning by all the Carlin drivers. James unfortunately had contact with his team mate which sent him into quite a dangerous roll, but thankfully he was unharmed which was our main concern. Once the race had restarted, Jazeman, Jean-Eric and Lucas had titanic battles throughout the field. It is a very hard fought victory for Jean-Eric and a well deserved podium for Jazeman. We're looking forward to what will hopefully be a much more sedate end to the weekend with race three later today!"

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