Formula 3 - Dino up to third

Dino Beganovic missed out on a podium, but he still had a profitable time at Imola’s Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, with a fourth place in the Sprint Race and a fifth in the Feature Race, enough to promote the Swede to third in the standings on 45 points, seven behind the leader. “It was a tougher weekend than expected,” commented Beganovic. “I didn’t have a good feel for the car, struggling a lot with the overall balance. However, considering the difficulties, a fourth and fifth place isn’t bad and that limited the damage. We will now carefully analyse the problems we saw this weekend to prepare for the next rounds.”

Sprint Race. With the reversed grid, Beganovic started the first race from eighth place. The Safety Car was required as from the end of the opening lap and then again a further three times. In the few actual racing laps, Dino managed to move up to fourth, passing Kacper Sztuka with a nice passing move on the penultimate lap of a race in which he made no mistakes. “It was a very positive race,” he said. “We picked up useful points which is just what we needed. The race was more of a long procession behind the Safety Car and I think we made the most of every opportunity.”

Feature Race. Contrary to expectations, the 22 laps of the second race went off without many changes and the Safety Car was never required. Beganovic was running sixth and then found himself fighting for places between seventh and fifth, which is where Dino finished, thanks to good tyre management. “The result did not live up to expectations,” commented Dino. “I tried to save the tyres in the first part of the race in the hope of upping my pace in the closing laps, but the pace didn’t turn out to be too good. I think I did the best I could realistically do.”