Australian Joey Mawson secured three finishes inside the top ten at Round Six of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship in Belgium.

Competing at the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit, the PODIUM-backed driver once again showed his racecraft in each of his three races.

After a challenging two qualifying sessions, Mawson found himself starting outside of the top ten for all three encounters. Mawson fought gallantly to move his way up the order in each race.

Race One was the highlight for the Sydney-sider, having charged forward from his 11th placing on the starting grid, to record a fifth placed result at the chequered flag.

Mawson also moved forward in the remaining two races of the highly-competitive championship around the 7.004km circuit. In Race Two he was engaged in a close battle with Mick Schumacher, before crossing the line 10th. After being pushed wide in the opening laps of the final race and dropping several spots, Mawson fought back to again record a finish inside the championship points in 10th place.

“It has been a solid weekend at Spa, to have three top ten finishes was a real positive,” said Mawson.

“It was amazing to drive at Spa-Francorchamps in these cars, nice to be able to tackle some of the most famous corners in the world of motorsport.

“Race One was the highlight, after qualifying we didn’t expect that we’d be able to move up so much so it was very pleasing.

“Races two and three we struggled with pace and straight line speed, which made overtaking very difficult as I couldn’t take advantage of the slipstream, but I still managed to move forward and collect some points.

“Overall it was a solid weekend with three points scoring finishes and two podiums in the Rookies Championship. We’ll now put our heads down and aim for the continual improvement as we always do and continue to aim for the front.”

British driver Lando Norris, who will next week test with the McLaren Formula One team, won two races with Austrian Ferdinand Habsburg winning the other.

The next round in the Championship will be contested at the Zandvoort circuit in the Netherlands on August 18-20.

Australian Joey Mawson is ready for the next challenge in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium.

The PODIUM-backed driver believes previous success of the Van Amersfoort Racing team at the venue should bode well for this week’s event.

“We had a test day at the circuit on Tuesday, which was soaking wet all day so it was very difficult to get a really good gauge.  The team has enjoyed success here in the past so there’s no reason why we can’t have a good round this weekend,” said Mawson.

“The weather conditions for the weekend are expected to be a mixed bag so we’ve really got to be on top of the set-up when it matters most.

“The circuit is just so cool. No matter what you are driving around here you really enjoy it and I can’t wait to get on track on Thursday.”

After a challenging couple of rounds to start his championship campaign, Mawson has shown impressive speed during the recent rounds and is aiming to continue this momentum this weekend.

“Over the past couple of rounds we’ve shown some good speed and we’re right on the verge of some really good results. In the short break everyone in the team has been working very hard on continuing the progress and hopefully I can reward them with a podium this weekend,” said Mawson.

Mawson competed at Spa-Francorchamps during his 2015 German Formula 4 campaign where he finished second behind Lando Norris in the final race.

With this weekend’s racing being contested alongside the 24 hours of Spa GT race, practice will begin on Thursday morning ahead of two qualifying sessions in the afternoon. Races one and two will be contested on Friday before the action for the Formula 3 drivers concludes on Saturday.

WEEKEND SCHEDULE
LOCAL TIME
Thursday July 27
9:00am – 9:40am Free Practice
9:45am – 10:25am Free Practice 2
1:30pm – 1:50pm Qualifying 1
5:10pm – 5:30pm Qualifying 2/3

Friday July 28
12:15pm – 12:50pm Race 1
3:40pm – 4:15pm Race 2

Saturday July 29
12:40pm – 1:15pm Race 3

AUSTRALIAN EASTERN STANDARD TIME
Thursday July 27
5:00pm – 5:40pm Free Practice 1
5:45pm – 6:25pm Free Practice 2
8:30pm – 8:50pm Qualifying 1
1:10am(Fri) – 1:30am Qualifying 2/3

Friday July 28
8:15pm – 8:50pm Race 1
11:40pm – 12:15am Race 2

Saturday July 29
8:40pm – 9:15pm Race 3

Australian Joey Mawson fought gallantly throughout the fifth event in the 2017 FIA European Formula 3 Championship at the Norisring Street Circuit in Germany.

On Friday the PODIUM-backed driver qualified eighth fastest on the challenging 2.3km circuit before making a good start in the opening encounter.

While holding down seventh position he was hit in the back by Jehan Daruvala in the chicane. The contact pushed him wide into the wall on the exit ending his race with damage to the car.

After some repair work by his Van Amersfoort Racing crew, Mawson returned to the circuit for the second qualifying session, which decided the grids for Races Two and Three. Unable to extract the maximum speed out of the car, Mawson qualified 16th and 15th. Such is the competitiveness of the category, a mere half a second covered the entire field.

In Race Two Mawson got another good start and during the first few laps moved up to 13th place. He would hold this position until the chequered flag.

With plenty of action around him, Mawson was forced to take evasive action on a number of occasions during the opening few laps of Race Three. Despite this, he continued to fight hard and move up the order before passing Guanyu Zhou on the last lap to finish 11th.

Mawson said “The weekend once again taught me a lot. It was good to finish strongly in Race Three to move up the order.”

“It was disappointing to crash out of Race One when I was well inside the top ten and then we had to continually fight to get on top of everything from there.

“I had some good speed in the final two races but it was very difficult from being so far back on the grid to get a good result.”

Mawson’s next race will be at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium on July 27-29.

CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS (After Round 5 of 10)
1. Maximilian Günther – 236
2. Joel Eriksson – 202 points
3. Lando Norris – 198
4. Callum Illott – 166
5. Jehan Daruvala – 106
6. Jake Hughes – 88
7. Guanyu Zhou – 84
8. Ralf Aron – 70
9. Harrison Newey – 67
10. Ferdinand Habsburg – 56
14. Joey Mawson – 36