Dutchman Bart Hylkema continues to dominate the Rookie Class of the 2011 Cooper Tires British Formula 3 International Series after securing his seventh and eighth victories of the season over the weekend, 14th/15th May, at the new Snetterton 300 Circuit.Although suffering the disappointment of a non-finish in the second of the event's three races, through no fault of his own following multi-car contact, the T-Sport driver departed Norfolk on Sunday evening with a very healthy 58 point lead in the class standings.In pre-event practice on Friday, 13th May, Bart was a full 1.6 seconds quicker than class rival Kotaro Sakurai in both of the one-hour sessions while also managing to lap within just two 0.026 seconds of the closest International Class runner. Qualifying then saw a continuation of his dominance, taking pole position for rounds seven and nine by well over a second. Saturday's seventh round produced a clear win for the 21-year-old. Following a good start he ran close with the group of International Class runners ahead in 16th position overall but after a Safety Car period between laps nine and 12, he wisely decided to protect his class lead instead of pushing harder and risking a mistake.Unfortunately, Sunday morning's round eight 'sprint race' was over almost as quickly as it had begun for Bart when he was taken out of proceedings with damage to the left-rear corner of his car. Having made a tremendous getaway from 16th place overall, the Delft-based driver ran in the thick of the midfield battle but at the hairpin he received contact and was forced into an instant retirement.Normal service was resumed for round nine though with Bart finishing a long way ahead of Sakurai to notch-up his eighth win of the year. Although a small error at the start enabled the Japanese driver to get ahead into the class lead, Bart hunted him down and despite struggling with some handling problems - most likely a legacy of the round eight contact - he soon regained first place."It's been a bit of an erratic weekend in terms if our results but, generally, I'm happy", said Bart, "In qualifying I didn't quite get the maximum out of the car or myself so I was a little bit disappointed with the gap to the A Class cars - that's a big target for me. However, the priority is the Rookie Class first and foremost and we took the pole positions quite easily."Race one was probably the best of the weekend for us, I was able to keep the pace of the A Class cars ahead but after a while I decided not to push harder to make sure we took the win. I had a really good start to race two but the contact at turn two caused a lot of damage to the left side of my car. We were back on top in race three though so I'm happy about that."There is now a lengthy five-week break in competition for the British F3 runners with rounds 10, 11 and 12 of the 2011 season taking place at Brands Hatch Grand Prix in Kent, south east of England, over the weekend 18th/19th June.Television highlights of all of the action from this weekend's Snetterton 300 races will be screened in the UK and across Europe on the Motors TV network and also in the UK on Channel 4 - please check listings 

Provisional 2011 Cooper Tires British F3 International Series 'Rookie Class' Standings (after Rd9):1st Bart Hylkema, 130pts