British F3 - Round 18 - Italy
Bruno Senna scored his 5th win of 2006 in the rain after driving around the outside of Oliver Jarvis in the first corner. The Brazilian controlled the race from there on in and took the chequered flag to keep his slim title hopes alive.
Oliver Jarvis was a little disappointed with 2nd place after starting from pole, but the 22-year-old was happy to finish on the podium after the incidents in round 17 left him on the sidelines.
Mike Conway kept his 100% points record intact, scoring in every round of the 2006 championship so far, with a 3rd place to move him closer to the title with four races remaining.
Cristiano Morgado, starting from 10th place, the highest starting place for a National Class competitor this year, took his second National Class win of 2006 ahead of Rodolfo Gonzalez. Juho Annala was third, just behind the top Invitation Class driver Fabrizio Crestani.
Incessant overnight rainfall had left the track extremely wet, with more rain falling as the cars filed out onto the grid. As the cars completed the green flag lap it was evident that visibility in the spray was going to a deciding factor. Oliver Jarvis had the advantage, lining up on pole position at the head of the 22 car field. The red lights went out and the cars shot off the line, all scrabbling for grip in the wet conditions. Bruno Senna, starting from P2 got the power down and moved up alongside the leading Carlin Dallara as the pair headed down towards the first corner. Jarvis still had the inside line, but Senna kept his foot in and drove around the outside of Jarvis and into the lead.
Behind the leading pair the conditions also helped to shuffle the pack with Mike Conway getting the better of Yelmer Buurman to move up a place, followed by James Walker, who had lept from 8th to 4th. Buurman dropped to 5th but was soon on the tail of Walker. Maro Engel had also lost out at the start, losing a place, with the Hitech pairing of Salvador Duran and James Jakes in 7th and 8th respectively.
At the end of the second lap Senna had opened up a 3 second gap to Jarvis as Conway started to close on his championship rival. Walker was dropping away from Conway as he came under pressure from Buurman who was looking at regaining the ground he had lost at the start.
For three laps Buurman tracked Walker, forcing the Jerseyman to defend his position. As they crossed the line for the 5th time Buurman dived out of his rivals spray and got alongside the Hitech Dallara as they both headed at full speed for the first corner. Walker held his nerve and kept the place in a brilliant display of defensive driving, but Buurman was the faster of the two cars and determined to have another go. As the two cars headed into the final corner for the 6th time it all ended in tears as they clashed and both of their races ended up in the gravel at Bucine.
This promoted Engel to 4th, with Duran behind in 5th. James Jakes in 6th was being closely followed by round 17 winner Christian Bakkerud.
On lap 8 Jarvis started to close the gap to Senna, posting the fastest lap of the race so far on lap 8. He was 4.1 seconds behind the Brazilian and two laps later he had reduced this to under 2 seconds, but Senna responded and this was as close as Jarvis could get. Conway had settled down in 3rd and as Jarvis pulled closer to Senna he dropped back from Jarvis but was over 10 seconds ahead of Engel in 4th.
Jonathan Kennard, struggling with the conditions down in 16th, had a weekend to forget and his race ended in the gravel on lap 8. A podium place in Round 17 has spurred on the Cesario team and Alberto Valerio was having a good battle with Stephen Jelley for 8th place in a reverse performance of yesterdays battle. Jelley pressurised the Brazilian but Valerio held on and eventually pulled a gap to the Englishman to give himself a bit of breathing room.
Cristiano Morgado, running in 10th, was caught and passed by T Sport's Stuart Hall before settling down to bring the car home at the head of the National field. Rodolfo Gonzalez had been making steady progress up the field and was in 13th behind Karl Reindler before his charge was blunted because he couldn't get past the Australian to get on terms with Morgado.
As the end of the race approached Senna had pulled away from Jarvis again, posting the fastest lap of the race on lap 12 with a 1m57.845. Jarvis was consolidating his second place but was being caught by Conway by over 2 seconds a lap and at the flag the current championship leader was just 1 second adrift of his title rival.
At the flag it was Bruno Senna who had both arms out the cockpit to the delight of the Italian fans who had gathered by the pits to cheer their hero. Oliver Jarvis was 7.7 seconds further down the road, with Mike Conway in 3rd ahead of Maro Engel and James Jakes.
Mike Conway now heads to Silverstone with a 78 point advantage over Jarvis in the title race and he needs to score just six points more than Jarvis in Northamptonshire next weekend to be crowned champion.
Rodolfo Gonzalez continues his relentless charge towards the National Class title and now needs to score just 11 points more than Cristiano Morgado next weekend on T Sport's home circuit.
Bruno Senna: "I had a good start, then a bit of wheel spin, then the car got traction again, so I got a better run into the first corner. He (Oliver Jarvis) kept the inside, which allowed me to go on the outside and then the inside for the next corner and I guess this was the right way because there was a lot of grip on the outside. From then on there was no spray and he was battling with Mike (Conway) so I could pull a gap. When I had four or five seconds gap I backed off a little bit and then he upped his pace and I had to up mine again, but I guess towards the end he backed off to take second and I pulled away as much as I could. I quite the wet, I'm usually very competitive in the wet and I'm very glad to have won the race. Mugello is a fantastic track, but as I proved yesterday and on Friday you need a good car to go anywhere here and I was just struggling a lot yesterday."
Oliver Jarvis: "It's been a bit of a disappointing weekend considering the pace we had, two poles , a comfortable pole in the dry. This weekend was all about consolidating second place in the championship and with Bruno (Senna) struggling so much in the dry it looked like a chance to pull away and build quite a comfortable gap to him. But things haven't quite gone our way and he's actually closed in on me. It looks like Mike's sewn things up so it's going to be a close battle to second place in the last four races. I felt I comfortably had the first corner, unfortunately I didn't realise the grip he got and it allowed him to drive right around the outside of me, which caught me by surprise. After then I tried to keep Mike behind me, which allowed Bruno to pull a bit of a gap. Then I finally got a bit of Rythme, which allowed me to close up on him, but it always looked like he had a little bit spare in case he needed to push at anytime. Looking forward to the last two rounds, we've got two good tracks coming up, Silverstone and Thruxton. We made some big steps forward since the tests there and I know I'm going to finish the year strongly. Bruno's got a fight on his hand if he wants that second place."
Mike Conway: "It's all about points and it would've been nice to sew it up this weekend but Carlin have done a fantastic job all weekend, They had a pretty quick car in first qualifying and yesterday was really close at the start, it could've been a big accident but we managed to consolidate with some good points yesterday and a solid finish today. We didn't quite have the pace of the other two but I'm happy enough with third. We kept our pace, I didn't want to do anything stupid and not get the points. It's a shame we couldn't beat Olly but we can do it at Silverstone."
Cristiano Morgado: "The start is really bad when it's raining this much, you really can't see anything. So I was very cautious at the start, got up behind Valerio and I just followed them around, pushing the pace. Then Hall came up to me a bit later and after he got past I just was able to cruise home."
