Vesti wins in Mugello, with title fight set for Sunday showdown

Frederik Vesti has taken his third victory of the FIA Formula 3 season in Mugello, followed by Jake Hughes and Théo Pourchaire—as the title fight narrows between Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant.

Lirim Zendeli got off the line ahead of Jake Hughes, but couldn’t match the pace of the Trident driver on the straights, with a head-to-head battle ensuing between the lead pair that would continue throughout the wholerace.

Behind them, Sargeant quickly gained a position as he overtook Enzo Fittipaldi to move up to fourth place.

Pourchaire quickly followed the American past Fittipaldi, moving up into fifth—and he held on to the momentum, passing Sargeant into Turn 1 on the second lap.

Piastri, leading Sargeant in the championship by just eight points, started the race down in P16, and spent the opening laps stuck behind Matteo Nannini, before bursting past in a series of tense battles that saw him move all the way up to P13, past Alex Peroni and Dennis Hauger.

The Zendeli/Hughes battle was heating up once again at the front, and a frantic few laps saw the lead change hands multiple times, with Zendeli leading for four laps before Hughes took the lead again and finally seemed to claim some breathing room.

Sargeant, mindful of his championship fight, attacked Pourchaire for fourth place, with the pair going wheel-to-wheel.

The American briefly got past, but was out-braked into Turn 1, finally surrendering the position to his French rival.

Frederik Vesti had kept in touch with the squabbling lead pair, and bid his time until Zendeli started to drop back, flying past at Turn 1 before setting his sights on the race lead.

Within a lap, Vesti had caught Hughes and was hounding him for the race lead - stealing first place and holding on in the final laps to claim the chequered flag by three tenths of a second.

“We won a crazy race with really high degradation,” said Vesti.

“It was really difficult to manage throughout the race. On the last lap, I passed for the lead after a great battle with Jake Hughes.”

“I am really happy to win and it is great points for the Championship. We now have three Race 1 wins from the season and I am really happy. A big thanks to PREMA and all of my partners.”

Hughes finished second, with Pourchaire up to third - cementing his place in the title fight to come on Sunday.

Gave it my all today, so so close to reverse grid pole. Happy with my race, made some big lunges. It’s not over ‘til the fat lady sings 🤟September 12, 2020

Sargeant, falling to sixth, had made up his point deficit to Piastri, but nothing more, with the Australian finishing in P11.

This left Piastri and Sargeant both on 160 points, with Pourchaire just nine points behind in third place.

The gloves will be off for Race 2 on Sunday, with Sargeant to start in P5, Pourchaire in P8, and Piastri in P11—after missing the reverse-grid pole by just one position.

“A bittersweet feeling,” said Piastri.

“I felt like I drove a pretty good race, attempting everything I could have done. It’s just a little bit painful to end up one spot away from the reverse grid pole. I can’t control that, but I can be happy with what I did.”

“It’s all on for tomorrow. We are even in the points at the top. It’s going to be a tough one. I look forward to a straight fight for the title.”

Sargeant said:

“Not a perfect race today but still good enough to keep ourselves with a good chance for the title heading into tomorrow.”

“We will look at what went wrong, at what we can do better and I can do better, and improve for tomorrow. I think if we do that, we have a good chance of moving forward and getting a good result.”