F3 Australia: Bortoleto wins back-to-back feature races

From pole, Trident driver Bortoleto didn’t put a wheel wrong over the course of the 23-lap race, holding off ART man Saucy to make it back-to-back feature race victories by 0.596 seconds.

Alpine junior Gabriele Mini led home a long train of battling cars to take the final podium spot for Hitech.

Bortoleto maintained the lead from Saucy and Mini at the start on a relatively calm opening lap of the race, but it wasn’t long before the safety car made its first appearance of the morning owing to two separate incidents.

The first involved Franco Colapinto, who won Saturday’s sprint race on the road only to be disqualified post-race, as the MP Motorsport driver picked up a puncture from contact with Luke Browning exiting Turn 3 and subsequently crashed at Turn 5.

Later round the lap, Mari Boya was involved in a scary incident at the fast Turn 9-10 complex as he launched off the rear wheel of Nikola Tsolov into the gravel and hit the barriers, although Boya was reportedly able to exit his MP car unaided.

When action resumed, the order at the head of the field remained unchanged until a crash for Ido Cohen exiting Turn 3, the result of contact with Rafael Villagomez, produced the second and final caution of the race just after half-distance.

Bortoleto again led comfortably when the race went back to green, as he and Saucy - who set the fastest lap - began to break away from third-placed Mini, who in turn was having to defend from Bortoleto’s Trident team-mate Leonardo Fornaroli.

Saucy continued to apply the pressure on Bortoleto but never got close enough to attempt an overtake, falling short of the win by half a second.

Mini was three seconds behind in third, leading home Fornaroli, sprint race winner Zak O’Sullivan (Prema) and Browning (Hitech), who faces a post-race investigation for his early contact with Colapinto.

Mercedes junior Paul Aron grabbed seventh, while the battle for eighth was decided in favour of Aron’s Prema team-mate Dino Beganovic after last-lap contact with Caio Collet.

From 30th and last on the grid, Pepe Marti (Campos) tore through the field to collect two points for ninth, while the final spot in the top 10 went to Taylor Barnard (Jenzer).

Trident’s Oliver Goethe, second in the points heading to Melbourne, finished down in 22nd after picking up a front-right puncture and pitting for a replacement wheel.

Sprint race polesitter Sebastian Montoya (Hitech) was an early retirement after opening-lap contact with Christian Mansell.

With Goethe failing to score all weekend, Bortoleto now leads the championship by 20 points from Saucy, with Beganovic third, 26 off the leader.

F3 Australia - feature race results (23 laps):

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time
1	Gabriel Bortoleto	Trident	23	-
2	Gregoire Saucy	ART Grand Prix	23	0.5
3	Gabriele Minì	Hitech Pulse-Eight	23	3.0
4	Leonardo Fornaroli	Trident	23	3.2
5	Zak O'Sullivan	Prema Powerteam	23	3.5
6	Luke Browning	Hitech Pulse-Eight	23	4.1
7	Paul Aron	Prema Powerteam	23	4.3
8	Dino Beganovic	Prema Powerteam	23	8.5
9	Pepe Martí	Campos Racing	23	8.7
10	Taylor Barnard	Jenzer Motorsport	23	13.5
11	Christian Mansell	Campos Racing	23	14.3
12	Jonny Edgar	MP Motorsport	23	14.9
13	Tommy Smith	Van Amersfoort Racing	23	15.5
14	Oliver Gray	Rodin Carlin	23	18.7
15	Hugh Barter	Campos Racing	23	19.0
16	Caio Collet	Van Amersfoort Racing	23	19.4
17	Hunter Yeany	Rodin Carlin	23	19.6
18	Sophia Flörsch	PHM Racing by Charouz	23	23.6
19	Rafael Villagomez	Van Amersfoort Racing	23	28.6
20	Alex Garcia	Jenzer Motorsport	23	30.0
21	Nikola Tsolov	ART Grand Prix	23	30.0
22	Oliver Goethe	Trident	23	56.0
23	Nikita Bedrin	Jenzer Motorsport	22	1 lap
	Ido Cohen	Rodin Carlin	11	12 laps
	Roberto Faria	PHM Racing by Charouz	8	15 laps
	Piotr Wiśnicki	PHM Racing by Charouz	6	17 laps
	Kaylen Frederick	ART Grand Prix	4	19 laps
	Franco Colapinto	MP Motorsport	1	22 laps
	Mari Boya	MP Motorsport	1	22 laps
	Sebastian Montoya	Hitech Pulse-Eight	0	23 laps
View full results