Mick Schumacher takes F3 lead with fourth win in a row!

Mick Schumacher just can't seem to stop winning European Formula 3 races at the moment!

Fresh from his hat-trick of victories at the Nurburging earlier this month, the 19-year-old has maintained his momentum in the first race of the latest round at the Red Bull Ring.

On Friday he succeeded in taking pole position for the first of the weekend's three races by almost a quarter of a second from his PREMA team mate Robert Shwartzman.

When the 22-lap race rain-delayed finally got underway on Saturday, the young Russian put Schumacher under sustained pressure at the start before Schumacher succeeded in pulling out a one second lead.

That gap shrank slightly as the circuit started to dry up in the second half of proceedings and Shwartzman started to turn up the heat again.

But Schumacher had done enough to safeguard his tyres, and he ended the race nine tenths ahead of his rival. Hitech Bullfrog GP's Alex Palau joined the PREMA pair on the podium, having impressively fought his way up from 13th place on the grid.

Mick Schumacher makes it a hat-trick at the Nurburgring!

"I managed to get maybe not the best start, and I had to defend quite hard to keep the position," Schumacher admitted after the race. "I had a good fight with Robert for the first few laps, and managed to pull a gap, then I managed it

"I felt the rear tyres were going away as it was drying out," he added. "I had to try a few things and see where the limit is, but in the end it worked out quite well."

However it was a disappointing outing for Britain's Dan Ticktum. Having qualified in sixth place, he fell back to tenth on the opening lap and could manage to fight back to only eighth place for Motopark by the time that the chequered flag came out.

Ticktum came into the weekend in the lead of the drivers championship, albeit by only three points after the German's storming run of wins last time out.

Now Schumacher has taken the lead in the standings by 18 points, with just two races still to come on Sunday at the Red Bull Ring, and three more at Hockenheim in October to go.

It puts the pressure on Ticktum who desperately needs the superlicence points for winning the title if he's to have any hope of being in the running for the vacant Toro Rosso seat in F1.

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.