Championship leader Lance “reigns” supreme in wet to record seventh win of season but team struggles to find optimum dry set-up

Lance Stroll begins a six-week summer break with a healthy FIA European Formula 3 Championship points advantage after the latest races in Belgium (29-30 July). The 17-year-old Canadian swept his Prema Powerteam Dallara F312-Mercedes home to his seventh victory of the season plus a fourth at Spa-Francorchamps over the past two days. He reconvenes at the Nürburgring in September with a 61-point lead despite the Prema team struggling to achieve an improved dry-weather set-up until Saturday’s final race.Stroll lined-up for Race 1 on Friday afternoon from pole-position for the seventh time this season – the Montréal-born driver completely dominating Thursday morning’s rain-soaked qualifying session by a staggering 1.270secs. Indeed, six of Lance’s eight “flying” laps would have been good enough for “pole” while it was the largest “pole” margin since the FIA Formula 3 European Championship began in 2013. Torrential rain necessitated a Safety Car start, the race going “green” with less than 14mins remaining. Lance, competing in his 51st career F3 race, drove with supreme confidence despite the treacherously difficult conditions opening up an advantage of almost nine seconds before an accident brought out the Safety Car which remained until the chequered flag – Stroll scoring his seventh victory of the season.Such has been Lance’s speed and consistency this year, a fifth row start for Race 2 represented his worst qualifying of the season by far due to a poor dry-weather set-up. Stroll, together with his three Prema team-mates, were left frustrated and mystified with an apparent handling imbalance and lack of grip in the later qualifying session on Thursday around the 7.004-km Spa-Francorchamps track. His fortune in the race 24 hours later did not improve when Lance was hit at the first corner resulting in a punctured rear tyre. A dejected Lance trailed home 19th after three pit-stops in a vain attempt to solve the major handling issues.Saturday afternoon’s race saw Lance start from ninth under an overcast sky but a totally dry track – the Prema team hoping overnight set-up changes would give Stroll an opportunity to race competitively. Lance completed lap one in fourth after a demon start, was third by the third lap and challenging for second. For the last 10mins, Lance was in the middle of a titanic three-car battle for second position. With less than two minutes to run Stroll dropped a position, Lance swapping places with George Russell almost to within sight of the chequered flag despite a drop off in rear tyre grip. It was a strong, composed and mature drive to fourth place in which Lance was denied the fastest race lap by a mere 0.074s but importantly extended his championship lead. Nine races remain in this year’s F3 series with three at the Nürburgring (10-11 Sept), Imola (IT) and Hockenheim (D) – with a maximum of 225pts up for grabs.“It’s been a mixed weekend but the important thing is that I increased my championship lead. Qualifying for race one was awesome, the car was fantastic in the wet, and I easily nailed pole. But the second session in the dry was very frustrating – for all four Prema cars. The tyre temperature never arrived but these things happen occasionally. Race 1 started behind the Safety Car which was the correct decision – it was heavy rain at first that caused aquaplaning. Gradually the rain eased and racing was possible. I felt very confident with the car, found where the grip was and pushed immediately to build a gap. Unfortunately we didn’t have many laps of racing with the Safety Car again at the end but it was another maximum points score. I was touched at the first corner after the start in Race 2 which resulted in a right rear puncture. I pitted again for tyres because the handling was dire. Unusually, the team struggled until Saturday in finding a better dry set-up but Race 3 was an improvement and I only just missed out on a podium when the rears [tyres] went off.”