Hauger goes from 12th to first to win first Formula 3 Austrian sprint race
The Prema driver secured pole position on Friday after inheriting top spot from Caio Collet after the Brazilian had his pole time deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 12.
Starting from 12th, Hauger was up to seventh by the end of the opening lap.
As he picked his way through the next couple of cars, the lead battle was between Matteo Nannini, Logan Sargeant and Clement Novalak.
The three DRS zones meant the lead exchanged consistently through the first 20 laps of the race.
Nannini got ahead of Sargeant on the opening lap and remained in the lead, somehow, ahead of the aforementioned duo up into Lap 19.
As Sargeant’s pace dwindled in the closing laps, the battle for the win was between Nannini, Novalak and Hauger.
On Lap 21, as Nannini tried to go around the outside of Turn 4, Novalak didn’t leave him sufficient room resulting in the pair touching and both ending up in the gravel trap.
Novalak was forced to retire, while Nannini dropped down to eighth.
Their collision promoted Olli Caldwell into second to make it a Prema 1-2 ahead of Sargeant.
The battle for fourth went down to the wire as Victor Martins came out on top ahead of 16-year-old Jak Crawford, who scored his best result of the season with fifth.
Caio Collet finished just behind in Crawford in sixth ahead of Jack Doohan.
Ayumu Iwasa and Aleksandr Smolyar rounded out the top ten with the latter running ahead of Crawford in the early phase of the race before struggling for pace as his tyres degraded.
Enzo Fittipaldi and Jonny Edgar completed the top 12 and thus will share the front row in this afternoon’s second sprint race at the Red Bull Ring.
Mercedes F1 junior Frederik Vesti endured a lonely afternoon as he narrowly missed out on the top 12 with 13th in the final classification.
Along with Novalak, Arthur Leclerc and Ido Cohen failed to take the chequered flag.
Leclerc went off by himself at Turn 5, while Cohen retired on the opening lap having started from the pit lane.
Click here for the full FIA Formula 3 sprint race one results from the Red Bull Ring.
