Ancora una vittoria per Roberto Merhi

Roberto Merhi took a dominant victory for Prema in the final F3 Euro Series race of the weekend at Hockenheim to make it two wins from three in Germany. The Spaniard was never challenged once he stole the lead from a slow-starting Marco Wittmann off the line. He gradually opened out the gap back to the German in the early laps, and extended it again in the closing stages after it had stayed around three seconds for much of the race. Wittmann's poor start from pole nearly cost him second place as well, but he squeezed the second Prema Powerteam car of Daniel Juncadella onto the grass before the first corner. That allowed Felix Rosenqvist into third, and the Mucke driver briefly grabbed second from Wittmann as well. But he only held the place for a lap, before the Signature driver re-passed him at the Spitzkehre hairpin on lap three. Rosenqvist closed in the final laps to put pressure on Wittmann again, but the German just held on to his second place. Juncadella and Nigel Melker ran fourth and fifth throughout the race, while there was more action behind them. Daniel Abt and Laurens Vanthoor scrapped over sixth place in the early laps. Abt briefly held the position thanks to a move at the hairpin, but when Vanthoor re-passed him into the Mercedes Arena, Jimmy Eriksson also got through. Eriksson then put a move on Vanthoor at Turn 2 on lap five, but by the end of the backstraight he was behind the Belgian again. He had another lunge two laps later into the hairpin, and this time he ran so wide that he allowed Abt back through as well. Abt would hold Eriksson off to the finish, and they were both promoted a place when Vanthoor was given a drive-through penalty for going too wide off track at Turn 1. Merhi's victory means he has now opened up a 19-point advantage over Juncadella in the Euro Series and also leads the new FIA International F3 Trophy by 30 points from his team-mate.