CHAMPIONS CONCLUDE FINAL SNETTERTON TEST FOURTH QUICKEST
Austrian Walter Grubmüller resumed his early season form with a superb performance in the final day of testing at Snetterton yesterday. The 19 year-old Hitech Racing driver posted the fourth quickest time of the afternoon with his 16 year-old team-mate Max Chilton joint eighth fastest at the Norfolk track.
For Grubmüller the sessions provided the teenager and his team with the opportunity to try out a number of parts on the Dallara F308 Mercedes HWA, with Team Principal David Hayle happy with the progress made. “Walter primarily was carrying out a number of tests relating to suspension, gearbox and dampers so we were compromised for outright fastest times. Despite that, once again, he showed his class and did a fantastic job against a tough field which at one point had the top ten covered by just a couple of tenths.
“For Max, yesterday was his first time back in the car since Oulton a few weeks ago; so much of the 2 days was spent re-acclimatising to it. Yesterday though, he was back on it and steadily improved throughout the two three-hour sessions, so all in all a very productive two days.”
Grubmüller too was happy with progress throughout the day despite an ‘off’ in yesterday’s session. “I’m happy yes, it all came together yesterday and I was pleased with fourth overall in that final session. I had a bit of a crash on Tuesday and spent most of this yesterday morning getting back into it, then in the afternoon I went for it and it all came right. It should be good next week and I’m looking forward to getting back out there and then the next rounds at Croft the following week.”
After missing the last test sessions, Chilton returned to the fold spending much of the first day getting back into it after a two-week break. “It’s been a weird couple of days really. Tuesday was spent just getting back into the grove after missing Croft last week but yesterday I really went for it and was surprised to see how many of the quick drivers were behind me. It was very close out there especially with most of the other faster drivers running in ninth downwards, very weird.”
The Buckingham-based Hitech Racing team resumes testing at Rockingham in Northamptonshire next Thursday with the next rounds of the British Formula 3 International Series at Croft, North Yorkshire the following week.
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