Dan   Clarke's   win-or-bust   rookie   season   in   the   British   Formula   3 International Series had a new twist on the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit at the weekend when he took three consistent top six finishes - including a podium result in the first race - in his Raikkonen Robertson Racing Dallara-Mugen Honda.

Clarke made the most of not quite having the speed to challenge the leaders to net a useful haul of points which  has  vaulted  him  from  eighth  to  fifth  in  the  championship  -  and  onto  the  coat  tails  of  the  third-place battle. But the phlegmatic Englishman was unimpressed after a weekend that provided little to slake his thirst for drama. "You can't race much on this circuit," explained Clarke. There are a lot of fast corners where you lose a lot of downforce. The racing was quite hard, because I just didn't have the pace to challenge the people in front and had to concentrate on defending, and luckily it all worked out." Even so, Dan pulled off a number of impressive overtaking manoeuvres after starting the first two races from seventh on the grid, and the third from ninth.

I had to make the best of a bad job, he said. I was as fast as I could  have  been  this  weekend,  but  we  couldn't  put  our  finger  on  what  was  wrong  with  the  car.  Nothing actually  felt  wrong  -  otherwise  we’d  have  known  what  to  fix!  I  just  had  to  capitalise  on  other  peoples’ mistakes." In the first race Clarke held off Danilo Dirani and Marko Asmer as he raced to third. In the second he once again  fended  off  Dirani  en  route  to  fifth.  And  in  the  third  he  pipped  the  inevitable  Dirani  by  a  mere  0.02 seconds for sixth place. Just to complete the Dirani theme, the Brazilian is one of those Dan has leapfrogged in the battle for the championship. But it's winning, not points, that concerns Clarke. I don't care much about the points, he shrugged.

I'm just concentrating on the driving and that'll stand me in good stead for next season. Some people are just far too concerned  about  points:  Asmer  totally  gifted  me  a  position  in  the  first  race  and  didn't  even  stay  on  the circuit!" Next up it's the Nurburgring in Germany, a circuit Dan has never driven at, but I've got some notes from our team driver coach Danny Watts, who raced there in the F3 Euroseries a couple of weeks ago" commented Clarke.  And  it's  a  circuit  that,  in  between  the  fast  stuff,  has  some  very  tight  hairpins  -  in  other  words  a breeding ground for the dramatic racing Clarke thrives on.

RESULTS

Race  1:  1  Charlie  Kimball;  2  Alvaro  Parente;  3  DAN  CLARKE;  4  Danilo  Dirani;  5  Marko  Asmer;  6  Mike Conway; 7 Stephen Jelley; 8 Keiko Ihara; 9 Christian Bakkerud; 10 James Walker.

Race  2: 

1  Parente;  2  Kimball;  3  Conway;  4  Asmer;  5 CLARKE; 6 Dirani; 7 Bakkerud; 8 Tim Bridgman; 9 Walker; 10 Ryan Lewis. Race 3: 1 Parente; 2 Kimball; 3 Bruno Senna; 4 Steven Kane; 5 Asmer; 6 CLARKE; 7 Dirani; 8 Walker; 9 Bakkerud; 10 Jelley.

CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS:

1 Parente 234; 2 Kimball 170; 3 Asmer 129; 4 Conway 126; 5 CLARKE 114; 6 Bakkerud 111; 7 Dirani 110; 8 Lewis 97; 9 Kane 61; 10 Senna 44.