McLaren junior Lando Norris took a dominant victory in the first European Formula 3 race of the weekend at Zandvoort.
Starting from pole, Norris controlled a safety car restart on his way to his sixth win of the season, ahead of championship rivals Joel Eriksson and Maximilian Gunther.
A good start from the rookie allowed Norris to pull away as team-mate Ferdinand Habsburg lost positions to Eriksson, Gunther, and Callum Ilott. Before he could build up too much of a gap to the rest of the field, the race was neutralised when Guan Yu Zhou collided with Ralf Aron and David Beckmann.
Aron and Beckmann were sent into the gravel, Beckmann’s car rolling over, but both were able to walk away from the accident.
Norris made a strong restart after the safety car to pull away from Eriksson and was left untroubled for the remainder of the race. He finished nearly nine seconds ahead of the Motopark driver, who had a two second gap to Gunther in P3.
After the safety car, Habsburg found his way back past Ilott to retake fourth, but couldn’t shake the Prema Powerteam driver. Ilott spent the race battling with Habsburg, but couldn’t make a move stick and had to settle for fifth.
Early in the race, it seemed Mick Schumacher might join the battle for fourth, but he lost pace in the second half and was forced to defend against Pedro Piquet and Jake Hughes. In the closing stages of the race, he led a four-way battle for sixth but managed to stay ahead of his rivals.
Piquet finished seventh, ahead of Hughes and Jehan Daruvala.
Harrison Newey held off Nikita Mazepin to take the final points paying position.
