Bart Hylkema confirmed his intent to be a major player in the top tier of the Cooper Tires British Formula 3 International Series at Paul Ricard in France on Sunday, 17th July, after rounding out his debut weekend as an 'International Class' driver with a fantastic eighth place finish.Undeniably the dominant force in the championship's 'Rookie Class' over the first half of the year, the 21-year-old opted to make the step-up to the headline division ahead of this weekend's encounter and despite no prior running in his new Dallara-Volkswagen he quickly got up to speed.

Two extremely unfortunate non-finishes in rounds 16 and 17 made for a trying and frustrating start to his maiden race meeting in the International Class but the Dutch racer put all of that firmly behind him in round 18 on Sunday afternoon.Forced to pit at the end of the opening lap after sustaining front-wing damage when four cars spun in front of him, Bart remained calm and composed and fought his way through the order superbly to take ninth place on the road. This later became eighth position in the final classification following a post-race penalty for Portuguese driver Antonio Felix da Costa."All in all it's been a very happy ending to quite an erratic weekend", said Bart, "We definitely had good pace which we improved a lot over the course of the event and the third race was the best I have had this year for sure. The competition and fighting on track is what I love about racing and that's the reason I've made the step-up. I'm leaving Paul Ricard very satisfied."Starting the weekend strongly, the T-Sport driver sliced seven 10ths of a second off his lap times between the two free practice sessions on Friday, 15th July, and in qualifying on Saturday, 16th July, he achieved more still with a best lap of 2m02.139 seconds placing him 13th on the timesheets.Unfortunately for Bart, the opening race of the weekend ended on lap three when contact to the rear of his new Dallara F311 resulted in a damaged rear wing and floor. Prior to this, he had been running very competitively in 14th position and on course for a good result on his International Class debut but retirement was inevitable after such an impact.T-Sport rewarded for outstanding repair work...Keen to make amends during the first of Sunday's two races, a chaotic start led to another non-finish for the Dutchman from which he was completely blameless. Although one car stalled on the grid, no warnings were given that the start would be aborted and the sequence of lights on the gantry made it seem the race would indeed get underway as planned.Half the grid sped off at normal speed while the remaining competitors slowly moved away from the line. The net result was unsurprising contact between several cars and with Bart coming through from the back of the grid - due to his retirement on Saturday - he was caught out at high speed. His car launched dramatically over two others and came to rest after contact with the pit-wall.He explained: "Everything was normal before the start and then the red lights went out before flicking to yellow quickly and then they went to green. There were no yellow flags being shown, no delayed start boards so I left the grid as normal. Then some of the guys in front were really slow, I braked immediately but had nowhere to go and I hit two cars at high speed and was launched."After the race, Race Control apologised for the confusing start. It was very disappointing and caused massive damage to the car but the team did an amazing job to repair it for race three. The guys worked extremely hard to get everything fixed, I have to say a big thank you to them for such great work."In round 18 he definitely rewarded his mechanics and engineers with a tremendous drive through from the tail of the field. Lining up 13th on the grid Bart made a good start but sustained front-wing damage while avoiding a four car pile-up at the first corner, although the deployment of the Safety Car enabled him to pit for repairs and rejoin at the back without losing a lap.When the action resumed on lap six, he immediately showed great pace and within seven laps he had risen into the top 12 with some superb driving. By the start of the 17th and final lap Bart was into the top 10 and a points-paying position but he then profited from a retirement for Kevin Magnussen to take the chequered flag in ninth place. He was then credited with eighth at da Costa's expense.From this weekend's event in the south of France, the Cooper Tires British F3 International Series competitors now travel to Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium for rounds 19, 20 and 21 of the season on Friday, 29th July, and Saturday, 30th July.Click here for the Bart Hylkema web site - designed and built by Racecar