Formula 3 European Championship race at Monza abandoned after Lance Stroll crash while Porsche set the pace at Le Mans

The Chequered Flag: Poor driving standards leave race organisers with little choice but to end two of the three races early

Stroll flies into the safety barrier before coming back down to earth (YouTube)

The third race of the Formula 3 European Championship round at Monza was abandoned on Sunday after race director Nils Wittich felt no option than to red flag proceedings due to the poor driving standards of the drivers.

The second race on Saturday was blighted by incidents and poor driving that saw a number of drivers exceed the track limits, either in an attempt to defend and overtake for position or as a result of a crash.

This led Wittich to hold an emergency meeting on Saturday with the drivers and team managers to explain that, under strict orders from FIA Single Seater Commission president Stefano Domenicali, any further poor driving would not be tolerated.

The drivers were informed that in the event that the race organisers had to take action, they would deploy the safety car until the race reached 75 per cent distance, when the cars would be parked and full points distributed. However, two early safety cars meant that the race not have reached that distance inside the 35-minute allocation, and instead the race was abandoned at the halfway mark.

It meant that Felix Rosenqvist secured a hat-trick of victories after winning all three races across the weekend, but he hit out at his fellow F3 drivers for their “stupidity” that saw him take home 50 points instead of 75, given that the second race was also halted prematurely.

“Two wins today, was lucky to be in front, avoiding all the chaos. Scary to drive among these muppets... #P1 #win @PREMAPowerteam,” Rosenqvist tweeted after the final race.

Addressing why he elected to abandon the race, Wittich said: "During the briefing we informed the drivers that it was not acceptable or the way we want to present F3.”

"Mr Domenicali told us to be very strict in this case, so we informed the drivers that if they drive like this today we will finish the race under the safety car.

"The first safety car was not a problem [concerning driving standards], but in the second we had two cars [believed to be Jensen and Lance Stroll] leaving Turn 11 [Parabolica] wide to give them full speed on the straight, and as a result we had an accident.

"I was talking with the stewards and they said this [abandoning the race] is the only way to do it - you could see pushing on the straight and overtaking manoeuvres off the track."

Lance Stroll collides with Giovinazzi, sending himself into the air (YouTube)

Stroll barrel rolls upside down (YouTube)

Stroll flies into the safety barrier before coming back down to earth (YouTube)

Meanwhile, Ferrari protégé Lance Stroll was penalised for a serious crash in race two after he was adjudged to have squeezed championship leader Antonio Giovinazzi off the track, with the two drivers touching and sending Canadian Stroll into the air and barrel rolling on impact with the ground and barrier.

Stroll was ordered to start the third race from the pit lane while being given a firm warning by officials, while both Matt Rao and Dorian Boccolacci were banned from starting race three as a punishment for individual crashes. Rao collided with Michele Beretta and Alessio Lorandi, while Boccolacci clashed with Maximilian Gunther and Sergio Sette Camara in separate incidents.

Watch the video of the crash below…

PORSCHE SET THE PACE AT LE MANS

The first test day for the Le Mans 24 Hours saw Porsche set the three fastest times across two rain-affected sessions, with New Zealand’s Brendon Hartley topping the timesheets for the No 17 919 Hybrid.

Brendon Hartley set the pace in the first test at Le Mans (Getty Images)

A time of 3min 21.061secs was good enough to set the benchmark for the iconic race which takes place later this month, with the No 18 Porsche of Neel Jani nearly a second slower. The fastest time set by the No 19 Porsche came from Nick Tandy, whose 3min 22.322secs-lap time was good enough to lock out the front three.

Audi’s reigning Le Mans winners and current World Endurance Championship leaders Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler managed to break into the top three in the afternoon session, although the No 7’s best lap time – a 3 min 22.556sec set by Lotterer – wasn’t enough to beat the sister No 9’s best lap time of 3min 22.307sec which was recorded by Marco Bonanomi which took fourth place overall.

The No 9 Audi proved to be the quickest challenger to Porsche (Getty Images)

Toyotas struggles this season continued as their fastest time was only good enough for seventh, although it did come at the hands of the No1 TS040 Hybrid driven by a returning Kazuki Nakajima, who showed no signs of the after-effects from a serious crash at Spa that forced him to miss the latest WEC six hour race in Belgium. The Japanese driver has also been given the all clear to compete at the Circuit de la Sarthe after coming through the test session.

Nissan's GT-R Nismo made its first public appearance but was off the pace (Getty Images)

Nissan’s LMP1 program got off to a bumpy start as they were nearly two seconds off the leading LMP2 pace, with Olivier Pla setting a best time of 3min 43.383 in the GT-R LM Nismo that he shares with Britain’s Jann Mardenborough and former F1 driver Max Chilton.

The LMP2 battle saw Oak Racing’s Laurens Vanthoor set a best lap time of 3min 41.919secs that was nearly half a second quicker than Murphy Prototypes’ Karun Chandhok. Aston Martin finished fastest in both GTE categories, with Darren Turner setting a time of 3mins 58.069secs to top GTE Pro while veteran Pedro Lamy finished fastest in the GTE Am class with a 3min 59.338secs to lay down a marker for the Vantage GTEs.