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Gonzalez with solid start to the British F3 season |
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Monday, 16 April 2007 |
 Venezuelan Rodolfo Gonzalez had a strong start to the British F3 Championship, driving in the Championship class for T-Sport in a Dallara Mugen-Honda. Gonzalez, who won the National British F3 class in 2006, was both battling against other quick drivers and those in cars powered by Mercedes Benz engines.
With all drivers needing to test frequently to get the best out of the car Gonzalez was troubled with back pain (from a 125mph Pembrey testing crash) but still managed 9th and 11th for the two races with a grid of 31 cars. This compared to his 2nd quickest time on the Silverstone Media days testing which showed how quick he could be.
With so many cars on the grid a quick getaway from the grid was going
to be advantageous and Gonzalez made a great start getting up to 5th
place (from his 9th on the grid) by the first corner. At the next
corner (Cascades) a couple of drivers collided which brought out the
Safety car.
Gonzalez lost one place after the re-start but fought strongly for the
remainder of the race, with his car’s engine loosing compression, and
finished a creditable 7th at the flag.
After several delays in support races the 2nd British F3 race finally
lined up at 5:30pm but due to several separate crashes had two red
flags. At the third time of asking the race got underway again and
Gonzalez managed to make up a couple of places before getting stuck
behind the Ultimate car of Guerrieri for a couple of laps before
finding a way past and easily pulling away. This delay though meant
that the gaps ahead were too big to make much impression and Gonzalez
finished in 9th place and 7th place in the Championship.
As Gonzalez said after the weekend “I think for me in the races we
struggled for pace, so it was quite hard although we made places up on
the start to stay in front of the quick guys. The T-Sport team, NBE
(Neil Brown Engineering) and myself are working hard to recover all
this pace.
“Hopefully by the next race at Donington Park my back problems will
have gone and I am looking forward to racing there. I thank the support
I have got from my T-Sport team.”
The next race meeting of the British F3 Championship will be held at Donington Park on April 22nd.
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