The third round of the 2016 FIA F.3 European Championship, held at the Hungaroring circuit in Budapest, handed Prema Powerteam a third place finish. In a really difficult Sunday plagued by pouring rain, the Italian squad experienced an unlucky run. Maximilian Günther was leading the pack from the pole when he got punted by Russell, who tried to go for a move on lap 5. As a consequence of the contact received, Günther ended up in the barriers and was forced to retire.

A good performance by Lance Stroll saved the day as the young Canadian came back from the eighth place on the grid to take the podium. Nick Cassidy spun in the opening stages but managed to rebound with a top-10 finish in ninth place. On the other hand Ralf Aron, after an outstanding race on Saturday, ended up off the track in the formation lap and that prevented him from lining-up at the start.

The next round for the F.3 European Championship will be on the 14th and 15th of May at the Pau street course in France.

René Rosin - Team Manager

“We are leaving Budapest with four drivers in the top-5 in points and two wins scored by rookie racer Aron and by Günther. I really appreciated how Stroll performed as he managed to score some really valuable points in all three races. He focused on doing the job and gave thought to the bigger picture. I’m perplexed for the performance of the Hankook tires that were given to us this weekend. Everybody was able to see how two of our cars were heavily penalized by the tire performance after everything had gone great on Wednesday. I hope this will turn out to be only an unfortunate circumstance”.

# 1 - Lance Stroll

“It has been a tough weekend due to the tires but I got points in all three races and that’s the most important thing. Thanks to the rain, I was able to show some speed in Sunday’s race. Conditions were difficult and extremely slippery but we lucked in with the podium because of the rain. The aim was to stay on track, not make any mistakes and score points. In short, not the best weekend overall after the strange qualifying but we recovered the situation to be close to the lead in the standings going to the next races at Pau.”

# 2 - Nick Cassidy

“I spun in the early stages and from that point on aiming at the leading pack was very difficult. I tried to maximise the result and in the end a ninth place is not too bad. It has been a complicated weekend, with tire issues that conditioned my results in both the two opening races”.

# 16 -Ralf Aron

“I made a big mistake in the formation lap and my Sunday ended in that moment. It’s a pity to have such a bad race 3 after experiencing a perfect Saturday”.

# 17 - Maximilian Günther

“I started well and was in the lead of the race. Russell got closer and closer so I started defending myself. At one point he tried to make a move and crashed on me, forcing me to retire. At least I’m still leading the championship”.

Canadians In BOLD