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Jimmy Auby returned to the podium in the
opening FIAT Spanish Formula 3 Championship race in Cheste this weekend, taking
second place and his second successive fastest lap. The 21 year-old Lebanese, on
his first time on a damp Valencian track, spent much of the opening session’s
practice acclimatising to the tricky conditions.
Despite running almost three
seconds off the pace, the youngster was in confident mood following his last
race at Magny Cours and determined to improve over the course of the weekend. In
the second dry session, Jimmy did indeed improve, gaining 11 places and more
than two and a half seconds from session one and even more time in the final
session to wind up less than half a second off the quickest
lap.
Despite not being
completely satisfied with the set-up of his GTA Motor Dallara, a superb
performance in qualifying netted him the second quickest time in class and
seventh overall setting him up for a solid race one.
“In the last session before
the qualifying, I managed to improve my times by a few tenths again and closed
the gap to half a second off the quickest time, even though I was on old tyres.
I wasn’t completely happy with the set-up as the car was nowhere near as good as
it had been in the test day so it was good to qualify so high up the order
despite traffic and red flags which stopped the session on each of my fastest
laps.”
Race one showed
Jimmy’s pace as from the start he was running competitive times while managing
to keep up the pace with the lead pack. A safety car period mid-way through the
race did little to disturb his charge and at the restart he was challenging for
sixth place. However on the penultimate lap a rare mistake by Jimmy in turn nine
cost him a place and although he tried to regain the position, the chequered
flag signalled the end of the race.
Jimmy went on to record eighth overall and second in
class.
Jimmy started race
two on new tyres, but with track conditions not ideal, Jimmy lost a few places
off the line dropping to eleventh. When his tyres finally came up to
temperature, Jimmy began his charge through the field, but once again it was the
car of Adrián Campos Jr that ended his progress, spinning in front of the
hapless Auby and forcing him to almost stop to avoid hitting him which allowed
several cars through.
Running now in
15th overall and sixth in class, Jimmy drove a determined race to
make up four places until six laps from home when the rain again fell, forcing
the organisers to declare it a wet race.
Despite that, Jimmy battled on to post the fastest lap in his class, and
fourth overall, just 0.28 seconds off the quickest time as he recorded fourth in
class and 11th overall.
“I feel the weekend went fairly
well as we had good pace and also managed our best ever position however from
our previous testing performances at this circuit I was hoping for more. “It’s a
pity about race two as we had found a good set up and we had really good pace
but not everything goes to plan. I look forward to the next race in
Jerez; it’s another circuit that I need to learn but
I’ve heard it’s a fantastic track.”
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