Renger van der Zande led from lights-to-chequered flag to triumph in the second of the two F3 Euroseries races at Hockenheim this weekend, as earlier winner Mika Mäki was forced to retire with collision damage and pre-season title favourite Nico Hülkenberg again failed to score.
On pole courtesy of the reverse top eight grid for race two, Prema Powerteam ace van der Zande shot straight into the lead from the start and never relinquished that advantage, ultimately coming home almost five seconds clear of second-placed Christian Vietoris as the young German made up for a disappointing first race.
Signature-Plus team-mates Edoardo Mortara and Franck Mailleux repeated their race one feat by finishing in third and fourth positions respectively in their Volkswagen-powered Dallaras, seeing the Italian sitting atop the title standings at the close of play, tied on points with Mäki.
The Finn – who had dominated proceedings earlier on – was this time forced out of contention following a clash with Jean-Karl Vernay, though he at least fared better over the course of the weekend than Hülkenberg, who after storming to pole position by almost three-quarters of a second, retired 13 laps into race one and came in four laps down and last in race two at the end of a truly luckless weekend.
There were dramas further back, too, as a stall from race one runner-up Charlie Kimball (Prema Powerteam) at the start saw both Jens Klingmann (RC Motorsport) and Henkie Waldschmidt (SG Formula) run into the back of the stationary American, bringing the safety car out immediately to enable the debris to be cleared away.
Yann Clairay (SG Formula) and Sam Bird (Manor) rounded out the final top six – the Briton doing well to overcome his Saturday qualifying woes that had left him way down the field – whilst Dani Clos only just missed out on the points after carving his way up the order from 25th on the grid.
