Rupert Svendsen-Cook took a commanding victory in the second of this weekend’s British Formula 3 races at Monza.
The Carlin pilot snatched an early lead from polesitter Riki Christodoulou (Hitech), remaining virtually unchallenged thereafter.
“I overtook Riki into the first chicane and then really pushed hard to break the tow. All I focused on after that was pushing hard, no mistakes, and consistent lap times and I got a good gap to break the tow so they couldn’t catch me.”
Race 1 winner Felipe Nasr took the runner-up prize in his Volkswagen-powered Dallara, thanks to a a move on William Buller on the eighth lap.
The Fortec runner had sustained a large amount of pressure from Nasr until then; however the Briton stayed in Nasr’s eye-line for the duration. Afterwards, Buller seemed pleased with his efforts:
“To finish on the podium is what we are here to do. I got the fastest lap, so I took the same total points as Rupert.”
Christodoulou eventually fell to 4th. The 22-year-old did not have the pace to keep with the top three once they had passed, yet had the measure of Jazeman Jaafar (5th, Carlin).
Carlos Huertas took a quiet 6th place finish having started on the second row. The Colombian was a clear four seconds in front of a stellar battle for seventh spot headed by Sino Vision’s Hywel Lloyd.
The Welshman led a gaggle of cars across the line, with Kevin Magnussen (8th, Carlin), Pietro Fantin (9th, Hitech) and Lucas Foresti (Fortec); however Foresti would later be penalised 25 seconds for causing a collision with Menasheh Idafar on the final lap – a penalty that would drop the Brazilian to 17th.
It would promote Carlin runner Jack Harvey to 10th and Fortec’s Harry Tincknell to 11th. It was a six car battle separated by just two seconds come the chequered flag.
Reigning British Formula Ford champion, Scott Pye made for an anonymous figure in the race, falling half-a-minute behind after the twelve lap event. The Australian assumed 12th ahead of Yann Cunha (13th, T-Sport), Bruno Mendez (14th, Hitech), and the sole Rookie Class entrant, Bart Hylkema (15th, T-Sport).
Adderly Fong limped home 16th following a late race collision with Pipo Derani (Double R). Menasheh Idafar was 18th and last thanks to crash damage from his shunt with Foresti. The T-Sport pilot was running with Huertas for much of the event until a late rear-end tap, sent the Briton into a spin.
Fahmi Ilyas found the Monza gravel trap inviting on the fourth tour around, while Kotaru Sakurai did not even start following his smash in the first race.
Race Rating: 3 out of 5
2011 British F3 Round of Monza (Rd 1, Race 2, April 17th) 1 Rupert Svendsen-Cook Carlin-Volkswagen 21:30.188 (12 laps) 2 Felipe Nasr Carlin-Volkswagen 1.045 3 William Buller Fortec-Mercedes 1.568 4 Riki Christodoulou Hitech-Volkswagen 6.636 5 Jazeman Jaafar Carlin-Volkswagen 7.713 6 Carlos Huertas Carlin-Volkswagen 15.692 7 Hywel Lloyd Sino Vision-Mercedes 20.050 8 Kevin Magnussen Carlin-Volkswagen 20.506 9 Pietro Fantin Hitech-Volkswagen 22.013 10 Jack Harvey Carlin-Volkswagen 22.205 11 Harry Tincknell Fortec-Mercedes 22.397 12 Scott Pye Double R-Mercedes 28.940 13 Yann Cunha T-Sport-Volkswagen 31.305 14 Bruno Mendez Hitech-Volkswagen 31.651 15 Bart Hylkema T-Sport-Mugen Honda 32.581 16 Adderly Fong Sino Vision-Mercedes 43.369 17 Lucas Foresti Fortec-Mercedes 22.030 (**25-sec penalty) 18 Menasheh Idafar T-Sport-Volkswagen 53.212 R Pipo Derani Double R-Mercedes 3 laps R Fahmi Ilyas Fortec-Mercedes 10 laps DNS Kotaru Sakurai Hitech-Mugen Honda -- Provisional championship standings 1 Nasr 30 points 2 Jaafar 21 3 Buller 20 4 Svendsen-Cook 18 5 Huertas 17 6 Christodoulou 13 Rookie class: 1 Hylkema 12
