Markelov secures first victory of 2013 at Lausitz

Photo: formel3.de

Russian young driver Artem Markelov made the most out of a good start to snatch away the lead from poleman Emil Bernstorff early on and subsequently secure his long-overdue premier victory in German F3 in 2013.

With championship leader Marvin Kirchhofer demoted to last on the grid due to a technical infringement, Bernstorff was promoted to first, while Markelov found himself moved up to the front row.

Following an aborted start due to an out-of-position car, the British poleman was a bit slow off the line. Whilst all eyes were focused on the incident in the back of the field, where Sheban Siddiqi moved over on Maximilian Hackl, collecting him as well as Freddy Killensberger, Markelov managed to demote Bernstorff, settling into the race lead as the race went into a safety car period.

Bernstorff, who also found himself muscled down behind Performance Racing’s John Bryant-Meisner, soon took second back from the Swede and proceeded to put pressure on his teammate for the duration of the race. However, with 0.2s separating them at the flag, it was Markelov took the win.

With Bryant-Meisner and Gustavo Menezes busy in a battle for third, both of them were snuck up on by Kirchhofer, who led a superb charge from the back of the field. The German first made use of an unsuccessful move on Menezes, taking P4 for the American. He then challenged Bryant-Meisner, but, going side-by-side into turn one, the championship leader ran wide and went over the grass, keeping P4 yet seemingly surrendering the ambitions of a podium.

However, Lotus would get to celebrate a 1-2-3 finish yet again, as the Swede’s car drastically slowed down in the final minutes, allowing both Kirchhofer and Menezes through.

Tomasz Krzeminski marked his debut with Performance Racing with a sixth-place finish, while, behind him, Sebastian Balthasar took yet another confident Trophy Class victory. Matteo Cairoli and Nabil Jeffri recovered from lowly starting positions to eighth and ninth respectively, while Nikita Zlobin finished his first German F3 race in tenth.

Race results