F3 | Australia: Stenshorne and Beganovic win, double Italian podium

It was a weekend that provided emotions and duels for Formula 3, with two distinct successes. Martinius Stenshorne won the Sprint Race on Saturday, while Dino Beganovic made up for the unlucky weekend in Bahrain by taking victory in the Feature Race on Sunday.

The results of the weekend indicate that Browning and Fornaroli are now tied at the top of the championship with 37 points, with Minì slightly further behind on 32. Beganovic rises to fourth place with 28 points after the difficult weekend in Bahrain, ahead of Lindblad with 23 and Tramnitz and Mansell with 21 points.

Feature Race: Stenshorne wins the duels

The first quarter of the race was characterized by an exciting duel between polesitter Laurens Van Hoepen and Martinius Stenshorne, with Christian Mansell third outsider. On lap three, Stenshorne launched his attack on Van Hoepen, overtaking the Dutchman at turn 11, before regaining the position a few corners later.

Stenshorne and Van Hoepen swapped positions again on the following lap, before the Norwegian made what proved to be the decisive move on lap five. Stenshorne thus began to pull away from the chasing group, increasing his lead to 2.5s and placing himself as the favorite for victory at the halfway stage of the race.

But by then Lindblad had already moved up from fifth to second place, having overtaken Mansell and Van Hoepen. The Prema driver began to reduce the gap to Stenshorne and was able to bring the deficit to just three tenths on lap 14, when the safety car intervened to recover Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak's PHM, which had ended up in the gravel after an accident with Tommy Smith.

After the neutralization, Lindblad tried to annoy Stenshorne on lap 18, but the latter was able to build a small margin which then led him to take the checkered flag with an advantage of over a second and a half.

Van Hoepen maintained third place behind Lindblad, despite attempts from Mari Boya in the closing stages of the race. Boya finished just ahead of teammate Oliver Goethe, while Dino Beganovic snatched sixth position from teammate Gabriel Mini at the final corner.

Martinius Stenshorne, Hitech Pulse-Eight

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Lots of movement in the following positions too. Sebastian Montoya started the final lap in seventh place, also ahead of Beganovic, but collapsed to 10th at the finish line, behind PHM's Nikita Bedrin and MP Motorsport's Alex Dunne. However, after the race the penalties changed the ranking: Beganovic suffered a 5s penalty for pushing Montoya during the fight with Montoya, thus slipping from sixth to thirteenth place. Bedrin was also sanctioned for overtaking his son of art beyond the limits of the track, relegating him out of the points.

Feature race: Beganovic ahead of two Italians

If he didn't excite in the Sprint Race, in the Feature Race the first success of the season came for Dino Beganovic, who in Australia had had a very unlucky weekend negatively impacted by the episodes.

The Prema Racing driver drove an intelligent race, waiting until the second half of the 23 laps to make his move, before extending his lead at the checkered flag. Fornaroli of Trident started from the pole obtained on Friday, but his advantage was almost immediately canceled out by the Safety Car, caused by an accident between Tommy Smith and Joseph Loake.

After the damaged cars were removed, Fornaroli tried to widen the gap on his pursuers, but Minì was able to keep a short distance from the lead. Only on the twelfth lap was Fornaroli able to get the Italian out of the DRS zone, leaving Minì to duel with Beganovic. This defense lasted only until the thirteenth lap when, after completing the overtaking, the Swede set off in pursuit of Fornaroli. Minì then also lost the position to Browning, who took third place.

Dino Beganovic, Prema Racing

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

One lap was enough for Beganovic to reach Fornaroli and the Trident driver couldn't resist for long, being overtaken in turn 9: Beganovic tried to escape, which, however, never really materialised. Only in the last two laps did Beganovic extend his lead, taking his first F3 victory by 0.89 seconds.

Fornaroli's fifth podium came after intelligent driving, while behind them Browning and Minì started a good fight for the last step of the podium. The Williams Junior driver tried to resist, but the Italian was the author of a beautiful maneuver in turn six which returned him to the podium position.

Browning led fifth-place finisher Charlie Wurz by nearly 13 seconds. The rookie had an excellent Feature race at Albert Park, holding off Sebastian Montoya. Oliver Goethe preceded the best Australian driver, Christian Mansell.

The winner of the Sprint race, Martinius Stenshorne, was the author of a mid-race contact with Joshua Dufek, resulting in a tire puncture. The Hitech driver then finished at the back of the group.