GP3: Kirchhofer wins from pole

After a magnificent GP2 race, the 20-lap-long GP3 feature race was held at the Silverstone Circuit and was won by Marvin Kirchhofer who managed to keep his his lead over Emil Bernstorff and won the race from pole position in a dramatic finish.

Right from the beginning of the race, the pole bearer Marvin Kirchhofer was in the lead, but Emil Bernstorff was right on his tail. Matthew Parry went up to third after overtaking Alex Palou, who dropped to fifth as Jimmy Eriksson overtook him as well. Even though he started on the bottom of the grid, Jann Mardenborough made a great move on Alex Fontana to get to nineteenth position. Unfortunately, Palou had to return to the pits as his car suffered an unidentified issue.

Halfway into the race, there weren’t many changes as Kirchhofer was still in front of Bernstorff, with Parry and Eriksson behind the two. A battle for the 20th saw Sandy Stuvik defending from Mitchell Gilbert and Oscar Tunjo was on Tuscher’s tail, but couldn’t overtake him. With five laps to go, Kirchhofer was 0.8s in front of Bernstorff and on lap sixteen, Luca Ghiotto set the fastest lap time and was closing down on Eriksson.

On lap 17, the gap between the leading two dropped to 0.6s and Ghiotto was attacking Eriksson even harder. The gap between Bernstorff and Kirchhofer was getting smaller and smaller and by lap 18, it was in the 0.5 zone.

The pair was driving side by side during lap 19, but Kirchhofer didn’t succumb and managed to defend his first position right until the end of the race. Parry was in the third slot for the first time in his GP3 career while GP3 championship leader Ghiotto finished fourth by overtaking Eriksson who ended the race in fifth in the final corners of the race. Ocon was on sixth, Ceccon on seventh while Boschung, Janosz, and Tuscher were the last three in the top ten.