Australian teenager Jack Doohan’s mixed weekend in the FIA Formula 3 Asian Championship means his title hopes are still alive despite a DNF spoiling his two podium finishes at the championship’s third round.
Racing at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, Doohan got off to a solid start over his fellow title rival Joey Alders from the Netherlands, with the Queenslander picking up a third place in the opening race.
While reigning champion Ukyo Sasahara won the race over teammate Nikita Mazepin and Doohan, his guest driver status saw Mazepin receive maximum points and Doohan the 18 points, which saw the Aussie reduce the title gap on Alders who came fifth.
The weekend’s next race was a different story though as Alders crossed the line first and Doohan’s fortunes ran out with technical issues forcing him to retire from the race.
It almost looked like Doohan would suffer a similar fate in the third and final race of the weekend as his car sustained clutch issues on the grid, only for the Pinnacle Motorsport team to get him right for the start of the race.
From there, a strong start allowed Doohan to work his way to the front and fight for the lead against Spanish teammate, Sebastian Fernandez.
While he was unable to pass Fernandez for top spot, a second place over Mazepin and the sixth placed Alders helped with staying in the title race.
“Luck hasn’t really been on our side, but sometimes that’s motorsport,” Doohan told the championship’s website post-event.
“This weekend we had some clutch issues which made it a fair bit more difficult not to stall the car, but I got off the line decently. I had a run on Sebastian, but there was no point in trying to do anything as we’re teammates, and I can’t afford anything.
“Then Nikita had a fair bit better pace than me for most of the race. Once the rear started to go it kind of helped my car a bit to get some rotation and I was able to manage the gap towards the end, but the pace wasn’t really outstanding.”
Doohan now finds himself 48 points behind Alders and just one point ahead of Mazepin with six races to go.
Also one the grid was fellow Australian Tommy Smith, but he was not able to have the same impact as Doohan, finishing the final race with a weekend high eighth place after a 12th and DNF in earlier races.
The FIA Formula 3 Asian Championship will return to Malaysia for the second time this season, with the fourth round to be held in Sepang on 14-15 February.