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Tuesday, 24 April 2007 |
Marko Asmer converted his second pole position start of the day into a further win that saw him extend his championship lead to 34 points over nearest rivals Maro Engel and Stephen Jelley.
In the National Class Sergio Perez and Michael Meadows swapped places on the podium from Round 3 with Perez climbing onto the top step. Frankie Cheng came through to take a closely fought 3rd, which gives him a 17 point lead in the championship over Michael Meadows
RACE
A slight drizzle had started to fall on the Donington Park race track
as the cars lined up for Round 4 but certainly not enough to cause the
teams to consider switching to Avon wets for the race. At the start
Marko Asmer gets a good getaway but Stephen Jelley bogs down from
second on the grid and the cars behind pounce to take advantage. Niall
Breen moved up from 6th on the grid, while Jonathan Kennard also made
rapid progress from 8th, as did Mario Moraes from 11th. There was
contact between a number of cars at the bottom of Craner Curves and
mayhem ensued as drivers took avoiding action in the slightly damp
conditions.
The race continued as cars were pushed out of the way at the Old
Hairpin and at the end of the opening lap Asmer had opened up a three
second gap to Niall Breen who was in second place and Mario Moraes in
third. Maro Engel was 4th but coming under pressure from Kennard. The
losers in the opening lap were Jelley, who was down in 11th and Valerio
who dropped from 4th to 10th.
Lap 2 saw Kennard get past Engel and Jelley moved ahead of Valerio,
while Asmer continued to pull away from Breen. Jelley made further
progress as he passed Michael Devaney on lap 3 but then a spin at the
Old Hairpin stopped his charge in its tracks.
Another driver on the move was Rodolfo Gonzalez, the reigning British
F3 National Class Champion setting the fastest lap on lap 3, having
moved up from 13th to 6th place.
In the National Class Sergio Perez was having to watch his mirrors as
Michael Meadows was challenging for his second win of the day, despite
his Dallara understeering due to a broken front wing. However Meadows
also had a problem in the form of the Dallara of ‘Frankie’ Cheng who
was tracking his every movement on the track and these three National
Class front runners were nose to tail as they each tried to exploit any
weakness in their rivals.
While Marko Asmer continued to circulate at the front Mario Moraes was
trying to find a way around his Carlin teammate for 2nd place, but
Niall Breen was not going to be denied his first podium in British F3.
Moraes then had a problem on lap 9 as Kennard challenged the Brazilian
as they came into the Chicane. Moraes spun away in a cloud of smoke
and was able to rejoin in 8th place, but his Carlin Motorsport Dallara
soon dropped down the order and into retirement, a bitter
disappointment for the rapid young Brazilian.
This promoted Kennard in 3rd but he then had Maro Engel challenging for
the position. As the race entered the second half the order at the
front settled down. Further down the order the drivers who had been
caught out in the opening lap chaos but had been able to keep going
were making progress back up the field.
Fortec’s Sebastian Hohenthal was slicing his way through the
backmarkers but was a lap down on the leaders. However a lap time of
1m02.283 just before the end of the race salvaged a point for the
Swedish driver. His Fortec teammate Greg Mansell was also coming back
up the field, picking off a number of cars on his way 10th place and a
championship point.
At the chequered flag Asmer was a comfortable 4.4 seconds ahead of
Breen and took the salute of his Hitech Racing team with both arms
raised out of the cockpit as he crossed the line. Niall Breen held on
to finish second, 0.4 seconds ahead of Jonathan Kennard, who had the
consolation of picking up the Donington Park Raymond Mays trophy for
the top scoring British Formula 3 driver.
Maro Engel and Carlin teammate Alberto Valerio were 4th and 5th
respectively, just ahead of Rodolfo Gonzalez, the Venezuelans best
finish of the year so far. Michael Devaney was 7th in the Ultimate
Motorsport Mygale, rounding off a good weekend for the new manufacturer
after Esteban Guerrieri finished 6th in Round 3 earlier in the day.
Atte Mustonen, Sam Bird and Greg Mansell rounded out the top 10 in the Championship Class.
The National Class trio of Perez, Meadows and Cheng stayed in that
order until the flag but only 0.8 seconds separated the three
protagonists, a great display of race craft by the three rookie drivers.
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