The Promatecme Lola-Dome of Danny Watts scored a trio of top points scoring finishes at Snetterton in the British Formula Three Championship over the weekend. Building on the promise already shown this season, the Mugen Honda powered F106/03 took a 5th placed finish in the Saturday evening round which was carried over from the rain affected Silverstone weekend in April. That result was then followed up with fighting 6th and 5th placed positions in the pair of races held on Sunday afternoon.

Despite missing the majority of the official Friday test after another car inadvertently pushed the Lola-Dome off the track, Danny and the team were still able to mix it at the front of the grid during qualifying for the two Sunday races and finish the second session in 6th place just 0.245 seconds from pole.

However, before the ‘official’ Snetterton races began, there was the unfinished business of the postponed Silverstone event to look forward to and Danny, starting 7th made his now customary flying start to complete the first lap in 5th place, harrying the four leading Dallaras of Piquet, Carroll, Di Grassi and Dirani. After a safety car period, Danny showed the true pace of the Lola-Dome and traded times with the leaders before taking the chequered flag just 5.7 seconds behind eventual winner Nelsinho Piquet and equaling his 5th placed finish in the first race at Silverstone.

"It was close at the head of the field and it was nice to know that we could keep in touch with the front four," said Watts after the race. "The car is getting faster all the time and to set the third quickest lap of the race (1m02.565s) shows that we have a car that can challenge for podium positions."

For the first Sunday race, the Lola-Dome lined up 11th but was once again soon in to the points as Danny stormed in to 8th place with some decisive moves that put him on to the tail of the leading bunch. 8th became 6th a lap later and from there the Neil Brown prepared Mugen powered car latched on to the tail of Ernesto Viso’s Dallara to challenge for 5th.

"I felt I was faster than ‘Ernie’ and that if I could get ahead of him I could catch up to the rest of the leading cars," said the BRDC backed driver. " I got a run on him coming out of Russell and looked for the inside but he had it pretty well covered."

Despite this valiant effort to wrest 5th place from the Venezualan, Danny was forced to settle for 6th to gain more points and move himself up the Championship table.

The afternoon race saw another third row start for the Lola-Dome and another fraught opening lap which saw Danny pressuring double Snetterton race winner, Piquet, for 5th place. After Hitech Racing’s Lucas Di Grassi was penalised for a jump start, Danny moved up a position to once again be in 5th position at flagfall. That very nearly became 4th when the Anglo/Japanese chassis latched on to Piquet’s tail exiting Coram on lap 13 and dived for the inside line in to the chicane. With the cars side by side, Danny was forced on to the outside line for the following right hander before again ducking in behind Piquet once more. Undeterred he tried again going in to the infamous ‘Bombhole’ but once more the Championship leader defended well and Danny followed home the highly rated Brazilian to score another creditable 5th place.

"The early stages were really enjoyable as I was clearly quicker than Nelson in the early running," said Danny, referring to his acknowledged skill on cold tyres in the early stages. "All in all it was a very satisfying weekend for the team and myself as we are now so close to the ultimate pace. I feel that if we had got more running done on Friday we could have come away with even better results but it was still very nice to be at the front to lap consistently with the leaders."

Promatecme team boss Chris Weller was equally pleased with the overall performance, saying; " These were three very fine drives from Danny this weekend and the car is developing well. Three places in the top 6 is very encouraging and the performance gap between us and the leaders is diminishing all the time."

Lola project engineer – Adam Airey who has overseen the constant development of the car at Lola’s Huntingdon base, including programmes in the on-site Wind tunnel and 7-post test rig, surmised; " We fought back well after suffering some bad luck during the test on Friday and Danny did an excellent job all weekend. It is pleasing to see the development paying off and the potential of the car coming to the fore and fighting at the front of the field."

The Lola-Dome is the only non Dallara in the British Formula Three Championship and is aiming to become the first chassis to beat the Italian design since 1993. So far the car has won in both the Italian and Japanese Championships and is also competing this year in the Euroseries with Coloni Motorsport.

The next rounds of the Avon Tyres British Formula Three Championship take place at Castle Combe in Wiltshire on June 19-20.