Luke vows to take the fight into F3 finale

Luke Browning remains firmly in contention for the FIA Formula 3 title with one race meeting left to run despite a frustrating weekend at Spa.

Luke went into the penultimate meeting of the year bidding to close the gap to championship leader Gabriele Minì and things started well for the Hitech Pulse-Eight racer when he topped the times in free practice; held in tricky mixed weather conditions.

Confidence was therefore high going into qualifying but Luke was left frustrated by traffic in the closing stages that meant he had to settle for the seventh best time – although that was still ahead of Minì on the timesheets.

With the grid for the sprint race seeing the top twelve reversed, Luke lined up in P5 for the start and behind Minì, who was firmly in contention for victory from the front row.

In tricky conditions, Luke battled hard throughout the race before eventually taking the flag in sixth spot – minimising his losses to Minì after he took the flag in second.

Post race there would be a twist however, with Luke one of a number of drivers to handed time penalties for exceeding track limits, which dropped him down to twelfth and outside the points.

It made the feature race even more important, and when Minì was tipped into a spin at the start and dropped to the back, Luke was given a golden opportunity to make up ground in the title race.

Sadly, a series of incidents would restrict the number of racing laps as much of the encounter was run behind the safety car, with Luke having to settle for sixth spot at the finish – running out of laps in his bid to move ahead of both Noel Leon and Sami Meguetounif in a three-way dice for position.

It allowed Luke to close to within five points of Minì in the standings, although a podium finish for Leo Fornaroli means he now holds the championship lead with just the Monza finale left to run – six points clear of Luke.