First year Cooper Tires British Formula 3 International Series competitor Bart Hylkema is focused on a strong conclusion to his maiden season in the UK's premier single-seater championship when the final event of 2011 takes place this weekend, 8th/9th October, at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit.Arriving in British F3 off the back of a successful tenure in Eurocup Formula Renault, the 21-year-old from The Netherlands has enjoyed a great first season - initially making the Rookie category his own with win after win before choosing to graduate to the headline International Class.Even though the Rookie title was within reach after a dominant first half of the campaign, Bart opted to make the challenging step-up to the main class at the midway point of the season in order to try and improve as quickly as possible by racing wheel-to-wheel with the very best drivers in F3.Fully satisfied that decision was the correct one for his career development, the T-Sport driver's view has been borne out with ever-improving pace and ability and some terrific battles in recent races."I'm very happy with how things have gone since the move to the A Class", said Bart, "It was quite a jump in at the deep end but it was definitely the right decision for us. I'm enjoying the racing much more and although the results aren't there just yet, we know they'll come. Last Wednesday, 28th September, the F3 competitors took part in their final officially timed test of the season at Silverstone as preparation for this coming weekend's three races. Although the day proved tricky in terms of finding an optimum set-up, the Dutch driver remains confident of a big improvement for the championship finale. "The test was a bit of a struggle for us to be honest, the morning wasn't very good on the whole for the team but by the end of the day we had made progress", said the Dallara-Volkswagen driver."Silverstone is a great track, I really do like it and it is one of the British circuits I have experience of so I'm really looking forward to racing there again. It's one of the hardest tracks to put together a really good lap on but very satisfying when you get it right. Hopefully we can have a strong end to the season."Pre-event practice will take place at the Northamptonshire circuit on Friday, 7th October, with the qualifying session and first race, round 28, set to follow on Saturday, 8th October, at 10.25 and 14.35 respectively. On Sunday, 9th October, round 29 will get underway at approximately 10.15 with round 30 scheduled to begin at 16.10.
Click here for the Bart Hylkema web site - designed and built by Racecar
