Roman Stanek finishes just below the podium in the Formula 3 main race, third overall

After a collision in the first corner, Roman Staněk finished tenth in Saturday’s Formula 3 sprint. However, he improved in the main race and finished just below the podium, moving up to third in the championship standings.

Stanek claimed a point for tenth place in Saturday’s Formula 3 sprint race at the Zandvoort circuit in the Netherlands. In the sprint race, where the order of the top twelve drivers from qualifying is rotated, the Czech driver of the Italian Trident team dropped from ninth place to 11th place after contact with Franco Colapinto of Van Amersfoort Racing, who failed to brake into the first corner and hit Stanek from behind.

He subsequently maintained a very solid pace, but overtaking is very difficult on the narrow track in the Netherlands. On lap 16, he moved up to tenth place ahead of his title rival Oliver Bearman of Team PREMA and finished the race there.

Roman’s comments on the sprint: “I started ninth and it was a good start, but I got hit from behind by a rider from Van Amersfoort. I was very lucky that it was not a bigger collision. I was just waiting for someone to shoot me down in that first corner, but luckily everyone got around me. It was a loss of three positions for me.

It could have been a lot worse. I could have had a puncture or a broken front wing. You don’t get one point on the road, so that’s good too. Now I’m getting ready for tomorrow’s race where I start fourth. It will need a good start because as we saw today there wasn’t much overtaking. We’ll see how it develops.”

The main race

However, the Czech driver improved in the main race of the Formula 3 championship in Zandvoort, the Netherlands, and finished fourth. With 109 points, he is third in the Formula 3 Championship standings.

It is led by Victor Martins of the ART GP team, who finished second in today’s race and has 126 points. Stanek is therefore 17 points behind him ahead of the final race weekend, which will take place in Monza, Italy, in just one week’s time. The main race in the Netherlands was dominated by Stanek’s teammate from Trident, Barbadian Zane Maloney.

After the start, Stanek dropped to fifth place behind Argentina’s Franco Colapinto and only got back up to fourth on lap 8 after a mistake by Jake Crawford of the American PREMA team, who was in third place at the time.

The race was marred by several safety car exits, but these helped Stanek to save his tyres, and even so he still had major problems with them at the end, making a podium attack impossible.

In the overall standings, Staněk jumped up two places ahead of PREMA drivers Arthur Leclerc and Oliver Bearman, who had a bad weekend in Zandvoort.