The fabled Nurburgring circuit high in the Eiffel mountains of Germany is the setting for the latest rounds of the 2005 British Formula Three International series this weekend.
Lola’s F3 competitors have racked up an impressive number of points in recent rounds and have shown serious pace in both qualifying and races. They are aiming even higher for this weekends events.
Danilo Dirani finished all three races in the points at Silverstone earlier this month in but came away still feeling that podiums should have been gained from the weekend. The Brazilian who is part of the BAR F1 teams young driver development team, is determined to finish the season as he started it with more victories and a place in the top three in this years final standings.
“The car has been great in the previous few races and with a little bit more performance we can be up there again,” said the 22 year old. “I have not been to this track before but I know that it should not be too difficult to learn and that the P1 team and Lola can give me a good car this weekend.”
Dirani lies just 19 points away from third placed Marko Asmer in the points table with six races remaining in this years series and after a useful test at Oulton Park last Friday is intent on targeting Asmer in the overall standings.
After a superb drive to fourth place last time out at Silverstone, Steven Kane is still as determined as ever to register his first British F3 win. Few people would begrudge him a success this year after abysmal luck has scuppered many fine qualifying and early race performances this season.
But as usual, undeterred, Steven is looking forward to the weekend in Germany in his Promatecme UK Lola. “It doesn’t take me long to learn a circuit as I proved at Zandvoort (for the Marlboro Masters in June),” said the Ulsterman. “It was a confidence booster at Silverstone when I took 4th place so hopefully we can build on that and come away with some good results this weekend.”
Kane has a busy few weeks ahead of him as between Nurburgring and the next races on the F3 calendar at Mondello Park, he will be contesting the first ever Britcar 24 Hours race at Silverstone.
Promatecme UK’s national class entry of Charlie Hollings got back to winning ways in the re-arranged Spa event held at Silverstone three weeks ago. The 24 year old blitzed the field to win by over thirty seconds, the biggest winning margin of the season by far.
The Yorkshireman, however, was frustrated in the other races with a 4th place finish and a DNF in the second after an incident off the start line. The frustration comes from knowing that the combined talents of himself and the car should see him challenging for the title but costly no scores mean that he lies in fourth place just behind points leader Salvador Duran, Barton Mawer and Josh Fisher.
“Despite still being in fourth place I am quite upbeat going in to the German races,” said Hollings. “We closed the gap on Mawer and it was nice to start wining again. My aim now is just to win as many races as possible until the end of the season and just see where we end up in the points standings.”
Sadly this weekends races will not be attended by Ben Clucas and Fluid Motorsport Developments. Clucas, who has taken the National class by storm with a win and three other podium visits in just six races, does not have the necessary finance to continue but is still scheduled to re-appear at the Silverstone season finale in October.
Qualifying for race one at Nurburgring takes place on Friday afternoon at 14.35 with race two’s session on Saturday morning at 08.00. Both races are on Saturday with the first kicking off at 11.35 and the second at 15.55.
POINTS STANDINGS
Championship class
1. Parente 234pts
2. Kimball 170pts
3. Asmer 129pts
4. Conway 126pts
5. Clarke 114pts
6. Bakkerud 111pts
7. Dirani 110pts
8. Lewis 97pts
9. Kane 61pts
10. Senna 44pts
National class
1. Duran 213pts
2. Mawer 204pts
3. Fisher 162pts
4. Hollings 159pts
5. Kennard 152pts
6. Annala 113pts
7. Clucas 80pts
8. Texeira 61pts
9. Jones 45pts
10. Lou Meng 34pts
