Spanish F3 - Strong drive from Bratt

EmiliodeVillota.com Motorsport’s Will Bratt produced a good drive in tricky circumstances at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia, Saturday, 27th September, to achieve a well deserved top 10 finish during round 12 of the 2008 FIAT Spanish Formula 3 season.Although qualifying lower than hoped in 13th place after struggling with understeer issues on his Dallara F308 car, the 20-year-old from Banbury put in a typically strong drive in race conditions to climb into 10th position.Although originally scheduled for 16 laps, this afternoon’s race ran to the maximum allotted time of 35 minutes due to a lengthy Safety Car period between laps five and 12 following a major accident involving two cars. Thankfully, initial reports deem both drivers to have escaped serious injury.Making an excellent start to the race, Will moved form 13th on the grid into the top 10 on the opening lap and into the second tour he started to pressurise championship leader Nelson Panciatici.Although slipping behind Jonathan Legris on lap two, Will shadowed his fellow Brit for the next couple of laps before the aforementioned Safety Car period became necessary. On the first lap after the re-start, Will immediately made his move to get back ahead of Legris and so into lap 13 he was back inside the top 10 where he remained to the finish.“We’re struggling with understeer this weekend and we haven’t been able to get to the bottom of the problem unfortunately”, said Will after round 12, “Qualifying didn’t go at all as we wanted but in the race we ran fairly competitively.“I was all over the back of (Nelson) Panciatici during the second part of the race, he was definitely holding me up and that meant I was under a lot of pressure from behind. It wasn’t a bad race really but it’s just a shame we were fighting for the top 10 rather than the win! Hopefully tomorrow we’ll manage to sort out some of the problems and be stronger.”The 13th round of the 2008 FIAT Spanish Formula 3 Championship will take place at 12.10 (local time) tomorrow, Sunday, 28th September, and will be run over a distance of 16 laps or to a maximum duration of 35 minutes. Will is set to begin the race from 10th position on the grid, as per his result from this afternoon’s encounter.


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