Carlos Huertas produced his best form of the year in Portugal last weekend to take two British F3 podiums and win the Sunoco Driver of the Weekend Award.
Carlos Huertas from Columbia is the youngest driver competing in this year’s Cooper Tires British F3 International Series. Since he came over to the UK in 2007 he has been nurtured by the Double R Racing team, competing with them in the Formula BMW UK Championship that year before moving on to Formula BMW Europe in 2008. He combined that with an F3 testing programme and this year was promoted to a full-time place in Double R’s Formula 3 team.
Team boss, Anthony ‘Boyo’ Hieatt has always had a high regard for Carlos’ potential ability and his faith was proven right last weekend when the Series made the third of its European trips, visiting the new Portimão circuit in the Algarve region of Portugal.
The entry was the strongest it has been all season with seven Invitation Class runners from the F3 EuroSeries joining the British F3 regulars. They included the current leader of the F3 Euroseries, Jules Bianchi, the winner of the Zandvoort Masters of Formula 3 race, Valtteri Bottas, last year’s Formula BMW Europe Champion, Esteban Gutierrez and Adrien Tambay, all entered by the formidable ART Grand Prix, as well as welcome returns from Sam Bird with Fortec, and Manor Motorsport, who entered the highly rated Roberto Merhi and Pedro Enrique.
Despite the strength of the opposition, Carlos Huertas was right in the thick of things, qualifying 7th for Race 1 and going on to take an even better 5th on the road in the race, which equated to 2nd in the British F3 International Class after the non-points scoring Invitation Class runners had been discounted.
It was a similar story in Race 2, with Carlos qualifying 9th and racing to 6th on the road, which again converted to 2nd in the International Class. Two runner-up podium places over the weekend was by far Carlos’ best performance in British F3 to date, leaving many of his more experienced rivals trailing in his wake, and he was the obvious choice to receive the Sunoco Driver of the Weekend Award.
Since then the British F3 teams have faced a hectic dash back from Portugal to Brands Hatch in Kent, where the final round of this year’s Series was held this weekend on the famous Grand Prix circuit.
