18 year old American Rookie, Jonathan Summerton, won the final race in Hockenheim, Sunday in front of a record breaking crowd of 149,000. In winning Jonathan became the only Rookie to win throughout the season. Placing USA in 2nd for Nations Cup.
Starting from pole Jonathan had a great start being pursued by Charlie Kimball in 2nd. Going into the hairpin on lap 2 Kimball lost control and rear ended Summerton bending Summerton's rear wing and breaking the front suspension on the Signature car. Jonathan continued, but due to the damage on the car was slowed slightly. The next challenger, Sebastian Vettel, had nearly caught Jonathan by lap five but he entered too fast into a corner, lost control and spun taking him out of the equation. Summerton continued to improve his times, now being pursued by Van Der Garde, who was on a charge. He caught Jonathan but could do nothing to position himself for a pass once in his draft. Team Mucke team mate, Buemi, now caught Van Der Garde and the two started to fight.
At the Flag Summerton led by 4.9 seconds. Afterwards, Summerton commented, "The shunt with Charlie caused me to have too much down force, slowing me down but I managed to drive well and didn't make any mistakes. I knew we could do it! To win in the F3 series final race is one of the best feelings for me. To be in the top 10 for the year in my first year is exceptional and hopefully I will be back in 2007."
The weekend started with a damp practice causing set up problems. "When the qualifying was dry we struggled," said Jonathan, "leaving me 11th fastest." "For the feature race we tried to set the car up so I could try and advance up the grid for the sprint race. I got to eighth," said Jonathan, "but the car would not go faster. As the race progressed I could see Van Der Garde coming along with the other cars, and, although I was improving on my times, he was still coming. At 8 laps to go he was behind me and pushing. Luckily, he made some mistakes which kept dropping him back and I managed to hold him off. It was a great, exciting race. I learnt a lot."
