British F3 - Rockingham...

[gomick]

Maro Engel & Marko Asmer scored pole positions...

Great effort by John Martin to be in P3 for race #2

[El_Gibleto]

Well done to Marco and Maro for their wins, and an extra big well done to Seb for getting 3rd in both races from low grid positions.

[gomick]

Final Standings...

1 Marko Asmer - 293
2 Maro Engel - 208
3 Stephen Jelley - 183
4 Sam Bird - 180
5 Niall Breen - 145
6 Jonathan Kennard - 130
7 Atte Mustonen - 126
8 Alberto Valerio - 114
9 Sebastian Hohenthal - 101
10 Greg Mansell - 79

[strider]

Rockingham turned out to be quite a good circuit for F3 in its new format. The hairpins provided overtaking opportunites, particularly the one after the blast along the pits straight and through Turn one of the oval circuit.

There were a couple of red flags in Saturday's qualifying sessions, but amazingly the two races ran without a hitch and needed no Safety Car interventions. Maybe the fact that the weather was much better yesterday helped.

Maro Engel won the last race of the season, just as he had win the first; it was the bit in the middle that didn't go as planned. Shame, really, Marko Asmer might have had a bit more opposition if it had.

Sam Bird had another mixed weekend. Retirement from race 1 but then runner-up in race 2. He wins the Rookie of the Year Award.

Seb Hohenthal was 3rd in both races and Atte Mustonen was the leading Double R driver, being runner-up in race 1. It was a disappointing weekend for them, ending up with Jonathan Kennard getting an injured arm when Marko Asmer's car rode over the top of Kennard's on the opening lap of race 2. I'm not sure what happened there, but it should look spectacular on telly.

With Frankie Cheng away in Holland on A1GP duties for China, Sergio Perez had no real opposition in the National Class, twice winning easily, but T-Sport had a nice double with Salman Al Khalifa following him home in both races.

[ss_collins]

Rockingham turned out to be quite a good circuit for F3 in its new format. The hairpins provided overtaking opportunites, particularly the one after the blast along the pits straight and through Turn one of the oval circuit.

You must have watched a different pair of race to me - they were an utter yawn fest. At least the cars are interesting.

[strider]

I suppose it depends where you're watching from and who you're watching.

In race 1, guerrieri made up 10 places on lap one and gained another 3 places by the end, for example whilst Hohenthal started 10th and finished 3rd.

In race 2, Gonzales grabbed the lead at the start, but was judged to have made a false start. After the consequent drive through, he dropped to 6th, then got involved in a melee with a close-running bunch and dropped to 12th by the end. The unfortunate Guerrieri, having run 3rd for much of the race and looking likely to get Ultimate and Mygale's first podium, lost the place to Hohenthal on lap 14 and spent the rest of the race fending off Mustonen. Etc.

[cg7aa]

Are the final two races going to be shown on TV as per normal? The reason I ask is that, I was there on Saturday (freezing for me!) and I didn't spot a single TV camera, either that or they were all well hidden and I'm just blind. The F3 qualifying session was a bit odd though i.e. stop, start, stop, start.

I did enjoy the Saturday GT race though but thats for another forum.

[macsport]

Originally Posted by cg7aa

Are the final two races going to be shown on TV as per normal? The reason I ask is that, I was there on Saturday (freezing for me!) and I didn't spot a single TV camera, either that or they were all well hidden and I'm just blind. The F3 qualifying session was a bit odd though i.e. stop, start, stop, start.

I did enjoy the Saturday GT race though but thats for another forum.

TV as normal on Channel 4 and MotorsTV - listings here

Cameras were there on Saturday because they were filming the British GT race which was the last race of the day.

Jeff