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Hitech Racing bounced back to form
with a dominating performance in testing at Rockingham today which saw the
championship leaders quickest in both three-hour sessions at the
Northamptonshire track. With Marko
Asmer at the wheel, the Silverstone-based team posted a time of 1:12.272 seconds
to wind up 0.278sec quicker than Jonathan Kennard.
Asmer’s only series rival Maro
Engel wound up fifth quickest, more than half a second shy of the
Estonian.
Marko’s young team-mate Walter
Grubmüller narrowly missed out on a top four slot after a red flag ended his
hopes on his quick run on new tyres.
Team principal David Hayle was delighted with the performance of both
drivers and was quick to praise Grubmüller who set his quickest time on old
rubber.
“We only had one set of new tyres
so spent much of the day on old rubber trying various different set-ups after
completely starting from scratch after Thruxton. It was a learning day really
and I have to say it was a great performance by both Marko and Walter. Sadly Walter was not able to capitalise
on the new tyres we bolted on at the end of the session as the red flag came out
ending his run.
“He’d set some very respectable
times on old rubber and with the times indicating a one second improvement, we
could very well have seen a third or fourth quickest time from him. After the weekend, we completely checked
and rechecked everything and found nothing wrong so to wind up quickest today is
a great result and one which has given the whole team a
boost.”
The Lloyds TSB Insurance British
F3 International Series will conclude at the Northamptonshire track on September
29/30 but before that final event, the team heads to Croft in North Yorkshire next weekend hoping for a double win which
will secure them the title.
Top times from
Rockingham
1. Marko Asmer
1:12.272
2. Jonathan Kennard
1:12.550
3. Sebastian Hohenthal
1:12.649
4. Niall Breen
1:12.775
5. Maro Engel
1:12.787
6. Greg Mansell
1:12.979
7. Michael Devaney
1:13.015
8. Alberto Valerio
1:13.037
9. Esteban Guerrieri
1:13.040
10. Rodolfo Gonzalez
1:13.083
12. Walter Grubmüller
1:13.315
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