Marko Asmer secured history on the streets of Bucharest after becoming the first person to win a race in the Romanian capital with victory in the fifth round of the British F3 International Series.
In a race dominated by Safety Car periods, Asmer secured his fourth win in a row to strengthen his lead at the top of the championship standings, while Carlin duo Alberto Valerio and Sam Bird completed the podium – the latter in his first outing on a street circuit. In the National Class, Michael Meadows celebrated his first start with Raikkonen Robertson Racing with a second win of the year, with Sergio Perez second and Hamad Al Fardan third, the Bahraini driver taking to the podium for the first time.
With conditions on track being tricky following the morning sessions, the decision was taken to start the race behind the Safety Car, with the race going green at the start of the second lap. At that point, Asmer started to pull out a lead from Valerio who soon coming under pressure from behind from Sebastien Hohenthal and team-mate Bird. Further back in the field, Ali Jackson was unable to build on his first National Class pole as he tangled with Jonathan Kennard and was forced to retire.
By the end of lap four, Asmer had shown his pace as he opened up a lead of 2.8secs over the battle for second, but two laps later, Hohenthal would be removed from that battle as the Swede was forced to retire.
The Fortec driver was defending third from Bird going into the penultimate corner when he locked up and got his car sideways – only to be collected from behind by team-mate Greg Mansell and the Ultimate Mygale of Michael Devaney. Although the Irish driver was able to continue, both Hohenthal and Mansell were out on the spot – with the Safety Car deployed to allow the cars to be recovered.
The race resumed on the eleventh lap, but before that lap was complete the Safety Car boards were back out again – this time after National Class title leader Frankie Cheng made contact with the wall and spun in front of both Leo Mansell and Francesco Castellacci, the trio all forced out on the spot.
It meant the field ran behind the Safety Car for another three laps before a two lap sprint to the finish in what would become a 30 minute timed race. Those two laps weren't enough to see anyone challenge Asmer as the Estonian stormed to a win that extends his title advantage to 47 points over Maro Engel – who could only finish fifth.
“The race wasn't that fantastic, we didn't get many racing laps, but still it was good for me,” the Hitech ace said. “The organisers and Romania have done a fantastic job to make this circuit. I really like it and I enjoy it. I managed to pull away in the first laps and I had a good restart after the next safety car, so Valerio wasn't even close enough to try to pass, so no I wasn't under any pressure. The championship is looking good and we will keep trying to get as many points as possible.”
Valerio held off the challenge of Bird to take second, while Niall Breen and Engel rounded out the top five – leaving four Carlin drivers line astern behind the winner. Atte Mustonen took sixth for Double R ahead of team-mate Stephen Jelley – who will start the second race from pole – and Ultimate's Esteban Guerrieri.
In the National Class, Meadows took full advantage of Jackson's retirement to take the win after fending off the challenge of Perez, the Mexican securing a third straight podium for T-Sport. Al Fardan completed the podium and will now hope to repeat the feat in race two where he starts from second in class. Meadows now leads the championship standings, three points clear of Cheng.
