Iwasa inherits maiden F3 victory in Hungary after Colombo penalty

Colombo took his first victory in the series this morning after overtaking Carlin’s Jonny Edgar into Turn 1.

The Italian was handed a five-second time penalty after he was deemed to have been more than 10 car lengths behind the Safety Car before its lights went out on the restart.

The penalty drops him to seventh in the classification, ensuring he still scored his first points of the season.

Olli Caldwell inherits second place, with Logan Sargeant taking third and his first podium of the season.

Explaining what happened at the Safety Car restart, Colombo said in the post-race press conference: “When the safety car switched off the lights, I said that was my time to create some gap from the safety car and let it go in order to not create any mess around... in order to be close when I wanted to restart. 

“We still need to see what happened there with the team because I got no communication from my team at least. Of course, we can see what happened there but talking about the race I think I didn't damage anyone, I didn't make any mess. So I don't know what to say about this I need to see with the Stewards and also maybe learn for the future what to do. 

“Maybe I could have done it in a nicer way, yes of course. We will see. It's always good to learn and improve, and like everything else not only in driving but all around, the rules respecting everything, to be more clean as a driver and more professional of course.”

Colombo will start this afternoon’s second sprint race from sixth on the grid.