Jack Doohan edges back into the F3 Asian Championship with victory in Sepang

Jack Doohan has taken Race 1 at the Sepang round of the F3 Asian Championship, followed by Joey Alders and Jamie Chadwick.

After two formation laps to mark the start of the wet race, Australian Jack Doohan lead away from the pole position, with Nikita Mazepin entering Turn 1 in second place ahead of Ukyo Sasahara.

Championship leader Joey Alders started seventh and was up to fifth by the second lap, behind W Series Champion Jamie Chadwick.

Chadwick went down the inside of 2019 F3 Asian champion Ukyo Sasahara into third place,. The Japanese driver came back quickly, sparring with Chadwick for the rest of the lap, but ultimately unable to regain his podium position.

Alders quickly dispatched Sasahara, and set off after Chadwick, eventually getting past the Williams development driver into third with a five-second gap to Doohan.

Lap times began to fall as the track dried out, with some drivers considering making the change to slicks, while others worked hard to find a wet line to cool their tyres..

Second-place Nikita Mazepin was unable to catch Doohan, and slowly fell into the clutches of Alders. The pair went side-by-side through the first sequence of corners before Alders secured the inside line and forged ahead at the exit of Turn 3.

Alders was unleashed and set off after Doohan, while Chadwick had Mazepin firmly in her sights as he lost considerable pace. As the drivers struggled for grip, Mazepin went wide at the final corner, gifting third place to Chadwick.

Attention then turned to Sasahara against Pietro Fittipaldi for fifth position, with the pair squabbling for a couple of laps before Fittipaldi outpaced the guest driver on the pit straight.

Alders had taken a second off Doohan’s lead by lap 8, setting the fastest lap in the process. The title was quickly taken by Pietro Fittipaldi, who was charging after Mazepin for fourth - which he won with ease.

The race victory went to Jack Doohan, two seconds ahead of Alders, with Chadwick in third.

Doohan said “Good start, so I was able to stay in front,”

“And then Nikita looked like he had a bit of pace early on, and was not catching, but maintaining the margin, so I didn’t have much to manage the tyres. Once I saw him start to drop off, I started to try and save the tyres as much as I could because I knew we were a bit high in pressure considering the grip I had.

“Towards the end I saw Joey starting to come, so the last two laps I started to push because obviously he’s thinking about the Race 2 starting position, but I just didn’t have any tyre left to do anything quicker. Luckily we were still hanging on for the win.”

Doohan took seven points away from Alders’ championship lead, bringing it down to 41 points with five races remaining in the 2020 championship.

Fellow Aussie Tommy Smith was P8, receiving the points for P7 after guest driver Ukyo Sasahara is excluded from the point allocations.