Vernay makes it a French hat-trick at Zandvoort

Jean-Karl Vernay made it three French wins from three races at Zandvoort when he took a lights-to flag victory in Race 3. The Leopard Lukoil Audi RS3 LMS started from pole, alongside Rob Huff in a Sébastien Loeb Racing Volkswagen Golf GTI, but Vernay got the better start of the two and led into Turn 1. From then on, it was a case of managing his pace and holding the British driver at bay. Vernay joined his compatriots Yann Ehrlacher and Aurélien Comte as race winners in the Netherlands.
Vernay’s teammate Gordon Shedden started alongside Frédéric Vervisch on Row 2, so there were three Audi cars occupying the top 4 grid places. The fifteen-lap race began in robust fashion, with a number of glancing contacts between Vervisch and Esteban Guerrieri on the opening lap, together with a more damaging incident involving Tom Coronel and Dávid Zsolt Szabó that saw both drivers forced to retire. After that, things quickly settled down and much of the race was fairly processional.
Shedden reignited his battle with Guerrieri in the race’s later stages, but the Scottish driver was once again forced to finish behind the Argentine. At the bottom end of the top ten, James Thompson passed Pepe Oriola for ninth place on Lap 11 and there was then contact between John Filippi and Gianni Morbidelli two laps later that saw the Alfa Romeo Giulietta spun off the track. The incident rounded off a frustrating weekend for the team, as Morbidelli’s teammate Fabrizio Giovanardi failed to start the race after damage sustained in Race 2.
Behind Vernay and Huff, Vervisch finished third, ahead of the battle between Guerrieri and Shedden that was only resolved when Shedden ran wide on the penultimate lap and so took the pressure off the Honda driver.
The result means Ehrlacher now has 146 points and leads the Drivers’ series from Yvan Muller on 137, Huff on 130 and Vernay on 121; Gabriele Tarquini remained scoreless and dropped from second to fifth with 118 points.
The series resumes in Vila Real in Portugal in late June.