Lewis Hamilton continued on his merry way towards a likely F3 Euroseries title by winning his sixth event of the season, and his second in what turned out to be a dominant Monaco weekend.
The Briton won the 40th Monaco F3 Grand Prix to be held as a support race to the annual
Formula One event in the Principality - albeit the first in eight years - and extended his already healthy advantage after just eight races of the year. However, even after fending off ASM team-mate
Adrian Sutil in Friday's round, Hamilton cannot say he had it easy in race two, despite his eventual seven-second margin of victory.
The McLaren-Mercedes protégé wasn’t able to dominate Saturday’s race in the same superior style as he had 24 hours earlier, and was perhaps fortunate to win after making contact with the wall at the exit of the ‘Swimming Pool’ chicane. The leader’s right rear wheel made heavy contact with the barriers, but the suspension somehow survived the test and Hamilton retained his advantage.
The incident, however, allowed his chasing team-mate to close the gap but, when the German tried to pass Hamilton at Ste Devote, he crashed into the tyrewall and had to retire.
“To win both Monaco races is far more than I had dared to dream of," Hamilton, who was left with a healthy lead, admitted, "I made a big mistake in the second race and, for a moment, my heart stopped beating when I made contact with the crash barriers. I thought that was that, but fortunately my car survived and I had the chance of finishing the race in a focused style to grab the win.”
Sutil's exit allowed French drivers Loïc Duval and Franck Perera to benefit with a trip to the podium, the Signature driver grabbing his second piece of silverware of the weekend and Perera making up for a poor race that left him down in fifth on Friday.
