Juri Vips converted pole to victory in the final European Formula 3 race of the weekend at Silverstone after championship contender Marcus Armstrong retired on the opening lap.
Vips was forced to defend against team-mate Jonathan Aberdein and Sacha Fenestraz on the race to the first corner, but managed to retain the race lead. From there, the Motopark driver pulled out a lead of around a second to second place Fenestraz and was untouchable for the remainder of the race.
Prema’s difficult weekend continued into the final race, when Armstrong was hit from behind as the field bunched together on the opening lap. The small contact damaged Armstrong’s suspension and he pulled to the side of the track to retire.
Less than a lap later, Armstrong’s team-mate Ralf Aron was knocked out of the race after contact with Sebastian Fernandez sent him into a spin. Fernandez ran straight into the gravel while the Prema driver managed to continue for a handful of corners before retiring.
A safety car was brought out to clear the stricken cars, allowing the field to bunch together again, but Vips made a perfect restart to pulla way from Fenestraz.
He finished 1.177s ahead of Fenestraz, with Aberdein a further two seconds behind.
Enaam Ahmed took fourth after an early battle with Mick Schumacher, Guanyu Zhou and Dan Ticktum. Ahmed was able to shake Schumacher after the restart and began to close in on Aberdein, but couldn’t get close enough to make a move before the end of the race.
Ticktum struggled on the restart and fell away from the back of Schumacher. Undetererd, he spent the remainder of the race closing back onto the race two winner and attempted two lunges on the final lap. Schumacher defended well to finish fifth, with Ticktum half a second behind.
Alex Palou finished seventh ahead of Zhou and Ferdinand Habsburg.
Robert Shwartzman put up a strong defence against Fabio Scherer to take the final points paying position.
