Who can stop Max Verstappen?

Max Verstappen (Van Amersfoort Racing) continues his winning ways and has racked up six victories on the bounce. He achieved the same feat as at Spa-Francorchamps by scoring a hat trick at the Norisring.

On Sunday morning it was raining as expected. When the time came for the cars to line up on the grid the entrants in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship took a hard look at the sky. However, despite the fact that the Norisring circuit was damp in places the only possible solution was to shod slicks.

From pole Max Verstappen made the best start followed by Tom Blomqvist (Jagonaya Ayam with Carlin) and Esteban Ocon (Prema Powerteam). The early stages of the race were enlivened by a scrap between Lucas Auer (kfzteile24 Mücke Motorsprot), Felix Rosenqvist (kfzteile24 Mücke Motorsport) and Jordan King (Carlin). The three drivers gained, lost and then, regained places. It began to rain again and Race Control decided to red-flag the race for a few minutes to enable all the teams to put wet weather tyres on their cars.

On the restart Max Verstappen held onto the lead while Esteban Ocon tagged Tom Blomqvist whose race ended on the spot, and the championship leader was hit with a drive-through penalty, which dropped him to the back of the field. Up front Verstappen strolled home to his fifth win on the bounce from Jordan King, Lucas Auer, Jake Dennis (Carlin) and the amazing Santino Ferrucci (Eurointernational). “The stewards took the right decision to stop the race to enable the teams to put on rain tyres. I’m very happy to continue my winning streak and above all I’ve reduced Esteban Ocon’s lead by a lot of points; that’s the main news from race two” said Verstappen.

The final race of the weekend was marked by several collisions on the first lap. While Max Verstappen and Esteban Ocon came out of them unscathed it wasn’t the case for Tom Blomqvist. Verstappen led from start to finish from Ocon and King. Behind this trio there was a lot of action with battles between Santino Ferrucci and Gustavo Menezes (Van Amersfoort Racing) as well as Sean Gelael (Jagonya Ayam with Carlin), Antonio Giovinazzi (Jagonya Ayam with Carlin) and Lucas Auer.

Thus, the young Dutchman scored his sixth consecutive victory followed by Ocon and King. “What’s very positive is that I did as well as at Spa, but on a totally different layout,” was how Verstappen analysed the result. “It bodes well for the next few rounds. I’m still far behind Esteban, but with three races per weekend things can change very quickly. So I have to continue in the same vein. I don’t know the Moscow Raceway while Esteban knows it pretty well. I’m not worried, though; I’ve showed that I can learn circuits very quickly.”

Santino Ferrucci and Gustavo Menezes completed the top 5 in this race. Sean Gelael, Antonio Giovinazzi, Lucas Auer, Antonio Fuoco (Prema Powerteam) and Tatiana Calderon (Jo Zeller Racing) were the other drivers to score points today.

Esteban Ocon still leads the overall classification with 74 points in hand over Max Verstappen. The Frenchman hasn’t scored a victory for six races and he will be determined to get back in the winner’s circle in Russia. Lucas Auer is now third overall in front of Tom Blomqvist and Antonio Fuoco. Rendezvous in mid-July at the Moscow Raceway in Russia.