Thomas Hylkema thoroughly enjoyed his first weekend of GP3 Series action at Valencia Street Circuit in Spain over the weekend, 25th/26th June, and despite a pair of unfortunate non-finishes in the two races the Dutch rookie made consistently strong progress throughout the event.After signing for the Tech 1 Racing team a month ago, the visit to Valencia’s 5.4-kilometre (3.4-mile) track marked the 22-year-old’s maiden race action since the final event of the 2010 Formula Renault UK Championship last October.Impressively gaining significant chunks of time during the course of the two practice sessions and qualifying, Thomas headed into the fifth and sixth rounds of the GP3 season aiming to learn as much as possible and benefit from maximum track time. Unfortunately, the latter wasn’t possible due to a multi-car tangle at the second corner of race one and another retirement on lap one of race two.Although disappointed to have missed out on the chance to benefit from the experience of two GP3 race distances under his belt, the Delft-based driver nonetheless ended the event satisfied with his improvement in lap times. Added to that, he thoroughly enjoyed being part of an FIA Formula One World Championship race meeting for the first time.“I have to say it was a very impressive event, it’s such a new experience for me to be part of an F1 weekend and I enjoyed every minute”, said Thomas, “The races were fairly unlucky, especially the first one as I got caught up in a pile-up that was nothing to do with me. Overall though I think we can be happy and positive too about the progress we made during the weekend.”In free practice on Friday, 24th June, Thomas improved markedly in terms of the outright pace and concluded the day’s running within 1.8 seconds off the top of the timesheets. He then found an additional 0.4 seconds during Saturday morning’s qualifying session to be just 1.3 seconds shy of pole position on the 15th row of the grid – proof of the huge competitiveness in GP3.At the start of the first race, Thomas got away well and looked nicely placed to make some clear gains through the sharp right-hander at turn two but a multi-car tangle just ahead blocked the track and, with no time to react, his car sustained a wrecked front wing and nose cone assembly. He did manage to return to the pits, but retirement was inevitable – one of five cars out on the first lap.Sunday’s encounter only lasted to turn 18 for the Dutchman. Again, a good start enabled him to make early progress but as the vast train of 30 cars headed into the final third of the lap Thomas was unfortunately in contact with another car as they raced at close quarters, leading to retirement.“My main aim this weekend was to learn as much as possible”, added the category rookie, “Between first practice and qualifying we made some good improvements and I was much more consistent with my lap times in qualifying, we got to within 1.3 seconds of pole position which is a good starting point. There’s a lot of hard work ahead, this is a big challenge in every way.”Rounds seven and eight of the GP3 Series will take place at Silverstone as support to the British Grand Prix over the weekend 9th/10th July. As a track which Thomas has good experience of from his time in Formula Renault UK, he’s looking forward to his return there.