After a day of Carlin domination in the British F3 series at Snetterton yesterday, Fortec Motorsport hit back with a 1-2-3 finish of their own today.
Lucas Foresti led from flag to flag in the eleven lap short race, maintaining a strong advantage over Harry Tincknell throughout the running.
It was a strong performance for the Brazilian to claim his second win of the season, as attempts to catch Championship leader Felipe Nasr. While happy with his win, Foresti remained somewhat downhearted about his race three prospects:
“The [team] worked very hard. I did not have a good qualifying, but now I can show that my car is fast during the race. [Later on] I just need to do a good start and to do the best movements I can.”
For Harry Tincknell, the rookie driver achieved his second podium with his finest run of the year so far. The Exeter-born racer beat fellow Fortec pilot William Buller off the line, sweeping ahead on the approach to the first turn at Riches. Tincknell was, rightly, delighted with the progress of both he and his team:
“It was really, really good. I had a 3rd at Oulton [Park]; that was a breakthrough result and it gave me a lot of confidence coming here and we’ve been on the pace again. I was just getting used to the starts at the first couple of races and learning how to do them. Now I think I have found a sweet spot to get a good launch. Once I was inside Will going into the first corner, there was nothing he could do.”
Buller only had one opportunity to retake Tincknell – on the fifth lap – but the 19-year-old held on for the runner-up spot.
“It’s probably not the result we were looking for, but I am happy enough with the Fortec 1-2-3 – you can’t get much better than that. The pace was good and had a few chances, but it’s so hard to overtake here.”
Fortec didn’t have it all their own way, with Carlin’s Kevin Magnussen assuming the fastest lap of the race – his tour of 1:40.181 was enough to garner the Dane a bonus point.
Pietro Fantin broke up the Fortec party with the Hitech driver taking 4th at the line. The Brazilian drove a threatening race, shadowing Buller to the flag, eventually missing out on a podium by just 0.361 of-a-second.
Fantin had a more comfortable gap over Sino Vision’s Hywel Lloyd. 5th represented Lloyd’s best finish in the British F3 series since last year’s event at Magny Cours.
He held off Championship leader Felipe Nasr for the duration. It was not all bad for Nasr – the Carlin man made a huge jump off the line, swiftly moving from 9th to 6th prior to Riches.
Riki Christodoulou ran undisturbed to 7th ahead of Carlos Huertas (8th, Carlin), Magnussen (9th, Carlin) and Yann Cunha (10th, T-Sport).
For Cunha, it was something of a reserved success – the 20-year-old took his first point in the championship, but were it not for a bad start from 8th, it may well have been much more.
Double R’s Scott Pye came home 11th, some six seconds up on teammate Pipo Derani (12th), with Fahmi Ilyas claiming 13th at the flag.
Adderly Fong (Sino Vision) climbed to 11th at the start, but a spin on the fourth lap dropped the Chinese pilot to 14th.
A first lap collision involving T-Sport’s Menasheh Idafar and Carlin pair Jack Harvey and Jazeman Jaafar saw Harvey retire on the spot, while Idafar and Jaafar lost a lap pitting for new front wings.
T-Sport’s Rookie Class runner, Bart Hylkema also retired on the opening lap kerfuffle, gifting victory to Kotaru Sakurai – his first class win of the year.
Rupert Svendsen-Cook retired in the pits thanks to a lingering engine misfire.
Race Rating: 2 out of 5
2011 British Formula 3 (Round 3 Race 2)
Pos Driver Team Time/Gap
1 Lucas Foresti Fortec-Mercedes 18:38.889 (11 laps)
2 Harry Tincknell Fortec-Mercedes +5.395
3 William Buller Fortec-Mercedes +7.594
4 Pietro Fantin Hitech-Volkswagen +7.955
5 Hywel Lloyd Sino Vision-Mercedes +9.245
6 Felipe Nasr Carlin-Volkswagen +10.415
7 Riki Christodoulou Hitech-Volkswagen +10.898
8 Carlos Huertas Carlin-Volkswagen +11.574
9 Kevin Magnussen Carlin-Volkswagen +11.910
10 Yann Cunha T-Sport-Volkswagen +13.396
11 Scott Pye Double R-Mercedes +14.798
12 Pipo Derani Double R-Mercedes +20.757
13 Fahmi Ilyas Fortec-Mercedes +25.528
14 Adderly Fong Sino Vision-Mercedes +25.905
15 Kotaru Sakurai Hitech-Mugen Honda +1:04.682
16 Jazeman Jaafar Carlin-Volkswagen +1 lap
17 Menasheh Idafar T-Sport-Volkswagen +1 lap
Retirements
R Rupert Svendsen-Cook Carlin-Volkswagen +11 laps
R Jack Harvey Carlin-Volkswagen +11 laps
R Bart Hylkema T-Sport-Mugen Honda +11 laps
2011 British F3 Championship (Rd 3, Race 2)
1 Nasr 113 points
2 Foresti 69
3 Jaafar 58
4 Huertas 58
5 Svendsen-Cook 45
6 Fantin 44
7 Buller 42
8 Christodoulou 39
9 Magnussen 36
10 Tincknell 30
Rookie class
1 Bart Hylkema 109
2 Sakurai 57
