Luke wraps up top three finish at Monza
Luke Browning brought the curtain down on his second season in the FIA Formula 3 Championship at Monza as the young Briton secured a place on the end of year podium.
The talented Williams Racing Academy driver went into the season finale as one of the drivers still in contention for the championship title and made a solid start to the weekend in free practice as he ended up just outside the top ten in his Hitech Pulse-Eight-run car.
Qualifying however would prove to be disappointing as Luke was unable to benefit from a tow during his segment of the session to end up seventh fastest, which would leave him 13th on the grid for the Sprint Race.
Things then got worse for the Briton when he was handed a four place grid penalty for ‘driving unnecessarily slowly’ during the session whilst looking to gain track position, with title rivals Gabriele Mini and Luca Fornaroli both picking up the same penalty.
The opening race of the weekend would see Luke go on the attack in fine fashion as he showed all of his skills to rocket up the order into the points – passing both Mini and Fornoroli en-route.
A move on the latter on the final lap following a late caution period would be particularly impressive as Luke took the flag in seventh spot before being promoted into sixth due to a post-race penalty for Sebastian Montoya.
It meant Luke went into the feature race sitting five points behind Fornaroli and two behind Mini, both of whom would be starting in the top three whilst he would need to come through from 13th.
Undeterred, Luke was able to make up places in the early stages before a spin at Ascari on lap three dropped him to the back of the field and forced him into the pits for a replacement nose cone.
Closing onto the rear of the field during a safety car period, Luke launched a stunning drive back up the order that went largely unseen as the title battle played out at the front.
Even with a time penalty for a safety car infringement, Luke fought his way back through from 26th place to 13th by the finish only to ba handed a ten second time penalty for contact that meant he would end up classified in a hugely unrepresentative 20th place.
Despite the challenging nature of the season finale, Luke ends the campaign third in the standings having further shown his potential on track over the course of the campaign.
As well as scoring wins in the feature races in both Bahrain and Austria, Luke was one of only two drivers to score multiple pole positions over the course of the season and would complete more laps than anyone else on the grid in a top three position – running in the podium spots for a total of 119 laps during the season.
Leave a Reply