Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney repeated his performance from Friday’s sprint race with a dominant victory in the feature race in Bahrain
The Sauber junior built a commanding lead before a mid-race safety period but still finished 4.621 seconds clear of Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti, who scored his second podium of the weekend, while Hitech GP’s Paul Aron was third.
Maloney climbed from third to first as soon as the lights went out, as reigning FIA Formula 3 champion Gabriel Bortoleto made a poor getaway from pole and then tapped Marti’s team-mate Isack Hadjar into a spin at the first corner.
Red Bull junior Hadjar was then collected at slow speed by Van Amersfoort Racing’s Enzo Fittipaldi, putting both drivers out on the spot and bringing out the safety car.
Maloney used his soft compound tyres to pull clear of the hard-shot Zak O’Sullivan at the restart, while Marti quickly dispatched Bortoletto and MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger into third.
Marti soon completed a switchback move on ART Grand Prix’s O’Sullivan, the pair having pulled over two seconds clear of the fourth-placed battle which was now headed by DAMS driver Jak Crawford.
Crawford halved the deficit to O’Sullivan over the next few laps, while Maloney pulled over 5s clear of Marti.
O’Sullivan was the first of the leading runners to make his mandatory stop at the halfway mark to switch to soft tyres. Crawford came in on the following lap but was left stranded in his pit box after his engine cut out and failed to fire back up, putting him out.
Maloney headed for the pitlane three laps later to change to hard tyres, just as ART GP’s Victor Martins ground to a halt after his car lost power. Marti also came in but rejoined behind O’Sullivan, with the safety car soon deployed to recover Martins’ car.
The race resumed with 11 remaining, with Maloney soon building a two second advantage over O’Sullivan, who initially edged clear of Marti before being reigned back in and passed by the Red Bull junior with six laps remaining.
O’Sullivan then lost third on the next lap to Aron, who had climbed from sixth following the safety car restart, and then came under pressure from fellow Williams Academy member Franco Colapinto.
Bortoleto prevailed in a battle with Invicta Racing team-mate Kush Maini before passing Colapinto and then almost snatched fourth at the chequered flag from O’Sullivan, who held on by 0.068s.
Maini finished behind Colapinto in seventh, with Hauger slipping back from fourth to eighth in the latter stages. Rodin’s Ritomo Miyata came home ninth ahead of Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who scored his first F2 point in 10th.
Trident’s Richard Verschoor ran in the top ten for most of the race, but lost ground late on and a five-second penalty for pitlane speeding further demoted him to 14th.
Ollie Bearman overcame two early unscheduled pitstops and a collision with Hitech GP’s Amaury Cordeel to run eighth following the second safety car restart, but then lost out in a battle with team-mate Antonelli and eventually tumbled to 15th.
Taylor Barnard was the last of the finishers in 16th after pitting for a second time due to his right-rear wheel not being fitted correctly during his mandatory stop.
Race result (32 laps)
| Position | Driver | Team | Gap |
| 1 | Zane Maloney | Rodin Motorsport | |
| 2 | Pepe Marti | Campos Racing | +4.621s |
| 3 | Paul Aron | Hitech GP | +11.781s |
| 4 | Zak O’Sullivan | ART Grand Prix | +12.523s |
| 5 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Invicta Racing | +12.591s |
| 6 | Franco Colapinto | MP Motorsport | +13.609s |
| 7 | Kush Maini | Invicta Racing | +14.719s |
| 8 | Dennis Hauger | MP Motorsport | +16.002s |
| 9 | Ritomo Miyata | Rodin Motorsport | +16.272s |
| 10 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Prema | +20.405s |
| 11 | Joshua Duerksen | PHM Racing | +24.035s |
| 12 | Rafael Villagomez | Van Amersfoort Racing | +29.532s |
| 13 | Roman Stanek | Trident | +31.193s |
| 14 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | +33.702s |
| 15 | Ollie Bearman | Prema | +51.135s |
| 16 | Taylor Barnard | PHM Racing | +58.999s |
| DNF | Victor Martins | ART Grand Prix | |
| DNF | Jak Crawford | DAMS | |
| DNF | Amaury Cordeel | Hitech GP | |
| DNF | Juan Manuel Correa | DAMS | |
| DNF | Isack Hadjar | Campos Racing | |
| DNF | Enzo Fittipaldi | Van Amersfoort Racing |
Featured image credit: Formula Motorsport Ltd
