Thrilling battles on Race Day of F1 weekend at Bahrain International Circuit

TDT | Manama                                                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Zane Maloney, Luke Browning, and Robert De Haan were all victorious yesterday (March 3) in their respective championships, held as part of Race Day supporting the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2024 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).

Maloney won the feature race in the FIA Formula 2 Championship, while Browning took the feature in the FIA Formula 3 Championship.

De Haan joined the honour roll by taking the victory in the weekend’s second race of the Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East (PCCME).

Maloney completed a sensational double yesterday in the season-opening round of F2.

After clinching the victory in the maiden F2 sprint race of the year on Friday, the Rodin Motorsport driver claimed the win in yesterday’s 32-lap feature race.

Maloney started from third on the grid behind pole man Gabriel Bortoleto of Invicta Racing.

He stormed off the line and went on the inside of turn one to take the lead.

The Barbados driver remained in front after his mandatory pit stop and after two safety car periods, and went on to build a comfortable gap towards the chequered flag.

He finished in one hour, two minutes, and 46.435 seconds to secure the fantastic double.

Pepe Marti was the runner-up for Campos Racing, 4.621 seconds behind, while Paul Aron of Hitech Pulse-Eight came in third despite a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

He was classified as 11.781 seconds in first place. Zak O’Sullivan of defending champions ART Grand Prix finished fourth, 12.523 seconds adrift, while Bortoleto had to settle for fifth, 12.591 seconds from the winner.

Completing the top 10 and the points scorers were Franco Colapinto of MP Motorsport, Kush Maini of Invicta Racing, Dennis Hauger of MP Motorsport, Ritomo Miyata of Rodin, and Kimi Antonelli of Prema Racing.

The F2 championship now heads to the season’s second round in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, next weekend.

Browning powered Hitech Pulse-Eight to the F3 feature race victory yesterday to wrap up the series season-opening round.

Browning started on the front row alongside pole-sitter Dino Beganovic of defending champion Prema Racing, but after Beganovic had a slow start, Browning took advantage and went to the front.

Pace

He maintained his strong pace all the way to claiming the win after 22 laps in 41:08.012 seconds for F3’s first feature event triumph of the year.

ART Grand Prix’s Christian Mansell followed 1.264 seconds behind, while MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz claimed the other podium place 2.432 seconds back.

Sami Meguentounif and Santiago Ramos of Trident and Gabriele Mini of Prema were fourth through sixth, respectively, while completing the top 10, and the points winners were Leonardo Fornaroli of Trident, sprint race winner Arvin Lindblad of Prema, Alexander Dunne of MP, and Oliver Goethe of Campos Racing.

The F3 season continues later this month with round two in Melbourne from March 22 to 24. De Haan took the win in the weekend’s second race of round five in the 2023/2024 PCCME.

Starting from pole, the Dutch driver put in a fantastic drive to take the chequered flag after 11 laps in 22:41.855.

He finished 1.678s ahead of runner-up and race-one winner Harry King from Great Britain, while Janne Stiak from Germany took third place 8.344s adrift.

Harri Jones from Australia was fourth overall, and Theo Oeverhaus of Germany came fifth.

Each of the top five is competing in the PCCME’s Pro class, while with his finish, Oeverhaus became the series’ first-ever overall champion with two races still to go.

In the ProAm category, Soeren Spreng from Germany claimed the win, narrowly beating out the Saudi Arabian pair of Khaled Alahmadi and Saud Al Saud. Saif Al Ameri of the UAE was the winner amongst the Am competitors, with Sebastian Gorga of Italy in second and Shaikh Jaber bin Ali Al Khalifa also on the podium in class in third.

The PCCME now heads for its championship finale in Jeddah next weekend.