In Oschersleben Nico Verdonck took his first victory in the German ATS Formula 3 Cup. Thanks to his win, Nico climbs up in the overall standings from fourth to third.
Nico gave his team JB Motorsport the first pole position of the season. On the front row, he was accompanied by his team mate Frédéric Vervisch. At the start, Nico lost some positions, but gained two places into the first corner. At the end of the first lap, he was already fourth and took an observing role. When the rain came down in the sixth lap, JB decided to keep its drivers on the track with slicks. Afterwards, it seemed to be a good choice, because Nico was able to overtake Van Dam en Bruins on the wet track. But the conditions began to worsen as the rain kept falling, making the track very slippery and dangerous. It was then that the race director decided to send the Safety Car out on track, thus neutralizing the race. All drivers hoped the race would be ended behind the Safety Car, but they were quite wrong. Three laps before the official end of the race, the Safety Car left the course and the drivers were shown a green flag. “Initially, I thought it was crazy to restart the race in these conditions, but then I was closing in on Frédéric very fast. On the last lap I overtook him in the chicane at the end of the back straight and won the race. A very good result after a poor start.”
In the second race, Nico started from fourth place, but at the start he had too much wheelspin and lost a couple of places. In the first corner however, Nico was hit from behind by Christian Vietoris and was pushed into the gravel. Nico dropped to ninth place and needed to perform well in orde to get a good result. His first prey was the Italian driver Cicchiello. After this, Nico made a good passing manoeuvre on Simon Solgat. Then he closed in on Max Nilsson. Lap after lap, Nico launched one assault after the other on Nilsson, who is known to be a difficult driver to overtake. Nico’s combativeness was only rewarded on the last lap with sixth place and three points. “On the straight, I was in his slipstream and I was able to outbrake him on the outside in the first corner”, Nico said. “My start was not good, but nevertheless I scored some points and drove a good race.”
“Altogether it was not a bad racing weekend, with one pole position and my first season victory”, Nico concluded. “We have to keep on performing like this and then we’ll see where we end up. I want to thank the whole team for their hard work.”
