Nico Hulkenberg won the first of the two F3 races at Barcelona this weekend.
And although he failed to score in the second race he nonetheless extended his championship lead over rivals Edoardo Mortara, Renger van der Zande and Christian Vietoris.
Hulkenberg started the first race from pole position but didn’t make a great start and wisely backed down from a three-way challenge at the first corner involving Jules Bianchi and Richard Philippe. Bianchi and Philippe took each other off and while Hulkenberg took evasive action Yann Clairay moved through into the lead.
Hulkenberg eventually passed Clairay for the win. Meanwhile title rival Mortara narrowly missed out on taking eighth place of Kazuya Oshima.
That gave Oshima the all-important pole position for the second race on Sunday morning, which the Japanese F3 champion duly converted into his first Euroseries victory. He was aided by a quite phenomenal start that propelled him well clear of the inevitable turn one carnage.
This time Hulkenberg lacked the piece of mind he’d displayed yesterday and got himself eliminated from the race. But with Mortara also out on the first lap, and van der Zande only able to finish 10th, Hulkenberg has increased his title lead this weekend.
Hulkenberg is on 72 points to Mortara’s 48. Van der Zande has 37 and Christian Vietoris, after two poidum finishes this weekend, is now fourth on 36.
There are four races left to run: two each at Le Mans and Hockenheimring.
