Vilander moves into championship lead with sixth win

Coloni Motorsport’s Toni Vilander moved into the lead of the ItalianFormula 3 Championship with his sixth victory of the season at Vallelunganear Rome on Sunday.

The promising Finnish driver is now eight points clear of Matteo Cressoniwith two races remaining at Misano on October 24.

But because Vilander has only contested six events (he started the seasonin the Formula 3 Euroseries before focussing his attentions on the ItalianChampionship), series’ regulations dictate he is not eligible for thetitle.

With 44 points available at the season finale, Alessandro Ciompi, in thesecond Coloni Opel-powered Lola-Dome, can still pip Cressoni to the crownbut will face a tough task, as he is currently 33 points adrift.

Although Vilander can’t win the title even though he may end the seasonwith more points than favourite Cressoni, team principal Paolo Coloni wasstill delighted with this weekend’s result, despite transmission failure inrace preventing Vilander from claiming a double victory.

“Toni really dominated today and his performance was very impressive,” saidColoni. “All the team did a solid job and I am hoping we end the seasonwith a strong result at Misano.”

The Misano event won’t be the last action for the Coloni team this seasonthough. The Italian squad is planning to contest the end of seasoninternational Formula Three races in Bahrain and Macau for which it hasrecruited the respected Peter Berry to engineer its two cars.

“We are working really hard for Macau and I cannot wait to see our teamfighting with the biggest teams in Europe,” said Coloni. “We hope to beable to confirm our plans soon but with Peter Berry in the team we have astrong package in place already.”