European F3 Open Mid-Term Report

With the traditional August break now starting, its time for Team West-Tec to take stock for the first half of the 2012 European F3 Open Championships – and also start to head for the final race meetings of the season.

After a very successful Winter Series, where Alex Lynn was a consistent scored top finisher, the main summer season started at Portimao where the team had unquestionably the quickest car, although a rare component failure on Sam Dejonghe’s brand-new Dallara F312, restricted him to a third place finish. Sam was backed up by Manu Bejarano who finished an impressive seventh in the wet race 2, after an engine problem had blighted his weekend to that point.

In their Copa F308 mounts, both Jordan Oon and Luca Orlandi both opened their 2012 points accounts, in a class which is incredibly competitive this year.

Moving on the Nurburgring, Sam took a superb and decisive win in race 1 and a decent fourth place in race 2, with Manu up in sixth and showing great pace. Jordan gave a composed performance all weekend, and had two Copa podiums which were tremendous results for the young Australian.

At Spa, Sam finished fourth twice at his home event but, in reality with the top four cars in a clear breakaway, could easily have come away with better results if he had more luck. Sadly Manu was sidelined by budgetary shortfalls at Spa, although the team welcomed its third F312 pilot in the shape of Venezuela’s Roberto La Rocca who did very well indeed to get into the top six despite coming in pretty cold. Jordan took a great second in Copa in race 1 at Spa, and was able to finish fourth in race 2 to consolidate his position amongst the leaders in Copa. Luca had an eventful weekend, being crashed into under the safety car in race 1, yet still recording two seventh place finishes in a close and large 13 car Copa field.

The team then went to Brands Hatch with high hopes of matching their 2011 clean sweep although it wasn’t to be this time. Sam had good pace but a qualifying accident left him at the back of the grid for race 2, although the drive of the weekend brought him through to finish in a stunning seventh. Roberto was having a good weekend, as he started to settle in to the team and series and qualified in a very pleasing top six grid slot, although a race 2 spin saw him non-finish.

After topping Copa in one of the Free Practice sessions, Jordan had high hopes for a breakthrough class win, although a solitary fourth place was as good as it got for him, although that again added to his points tally. Luca again suffered bad fortune, with a Free Practice crash leaving him with a broken wrist which is still healing at the time of writing, although he is expected back in the cockpit later in the season.

Paul Ricard in the South of France was a complete weather and circuit-style change from the tight and twisty Brands Hatch. Sam was again in the leading bunch the whole weekend, although never quite had the car to his total liking. A poor start to race 1 led him to another formidable come back through the field and was followed by yet another fourth place finish in race 2. Roberto was unlucky to have a weekend to forget with a fire in his car at the end of the first session of Free Practice meaning he missed a lot of track time which he was never quite able to catch up on. In Copa, Jordan flew the West-Tec flag alone, with Luca’s injury although endured a disappointing weekend by his standards.

After the first five race meetings, Sam lies in fourth (surprise, surprise!) in the overall drivers’ points table and still has a chance to challenge for the title if he can take a couple more wins in the next couple of weekends.

Roberto has impressed everyone in the team with his ability and, with a little more testing, also looks ready to be challenging for wins and podiums positions.

In Copa, Jordan still holds a good fourth position, and has also twice scored points in the overall classification which is also a satisfying result. Poor Luca has had a bad time of it with his wrist but his three hard won points in Portimao show a measure of his determination and ability.

In the Teams’ Classification, Team West-Tec is in a competitive third position, although everyone is working hard to improve on that, endeavouring to match 2011 when we were the Overall Champions.

With race weekends to come at the Hungaroring, Monza and Barcelona – current F1 circuits all – and a busy test and development programme, all is still to play for!

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