Sprint Race: Pulcini soars to race win ahead of Shwartzman

Leonardo Pulcini has taken his first win of the 2019 FIA Formula 3 season, as he made use of his high starting position on Sunday. 

The Italian started the race from fifth on the grid but was up into third place after the opening lap, and set his sights on Pedro Piquet in front for second on the track. 

After making his way past the Brazilian, Pulcini closed up onto the back of Liam Lawson, passing the Red Bull-backed driver for the lead on lap nine and never looked back.

Robert Shwartzman ended up coming home in second, but had to work for the podium spot after dropping a couple of spots on the opening lap.

The Russian battled his teammate Jehan Daruvala but stayed ahead before passing Piquet and Lawson to move into P2. Shwartzman started to eat into the lead of Pulcini, but the gap was too large to overcome.

Lawson held onto the final podium spot, fending off the Prema of Marcus Armstrong. 

There was drama on the penultimate lap for the third Prema of Jehan Daruvala, who made contact with Piquet at the final corner in the battle for fourth place, putting both of them out of the race.

Yesterday's race winner Juri Vips had a miserable day, going off the road a couple of times before coming together with Jake Hughes in the final laps. 

After starting from the front row, Christian Lundgaard struggled but came home in fifth place, gaining two spots after the contact between Piquet and Daruvala.

Lundgaard's ART teammate David Beckmann was sixth, while Yuki Tsunoda pulled off another strong drive to storm to seventh, while Fabio Scherer picked up the final point for Sauber Junior Team by Charouz.