British Formula 3 - Round 6 - Paul Ricard

[strider]

This weekend British F3 moves to entirely new pastures - Paul Ricard in the south of France for round 6. There are various circuit configurations there, but this will be the big one because the main race is for the FIA GT1 World Championship.

Weather is unlikely to be a problem because it's currently 32°C out there.

The first free practice session has already been held. It's no surprise to Felipe Nasr out there in front. The second session is being held about now.

Here's a link for live timing and results: http://bit.ly/oJQaiF

Tomorrow Qualifying is at 09:30 CET and Race 1 is at 15:00 CET.

On Sunday Race 2 is at 10:00 CET and then the guys have to twiddle their thumbs until the end of the day until Race 3 wraps up the action at 16:45.

There's a preview here, which also confirms that Bart Hylkema has moved up from the Rookie Class to the International Class for the rest of the season, which leaves Kotaro Sakurai on his own for now, although Hitech may be running a car in the class for the last three rounds in the UK.

[strider]

Sorry, I left out the link to the meeting preview in my last post, so here it is.

Kevin Magnussen was fastest in the second free practice session today with the best time of the day, but only narrowly eclipsed Felipe Nasr's time from FP1. Report.

[strider]

Kevin Magnussen has repeated his Hockenheim feat by taking pole position for both main races at Paul Ricard, the first of them to be run later this afternoon. As expected, Felipe Nasr was his closest rival, with Antonio Felix da Costa benefiting from his GP3 testing knowledge of the circuit to be 3rd and prevent a Carlin lock-out of the top five. Report.

[skells22]

For the 2nd time there was a slight confusion on the start at this track and caused a pile up. This time it was the the British F3 field that got the issue as the lights went to red then yellow (to say aborted start) then green (meaning extra formation lap) and some wer a bit confused. it caused a big mess and i wonder if it will find itself on youtube once again.

[strider]

Originally Posted by skells22

For the 2nd time there was a slight confusion on the start at this track and caused a pile up. This time it was the the British F3 field that got the issue as the lights went to red then yellow (to say aborted start) then green (meaning extra formation lap) and some wer a bit confused. it caused a big mess and i wonder if it will find itself on youtube once again.

This is referring to Race 2, which sounds to have been pretty shambolic, although William Buller took a clear win.

Here's one report and here is another. They'll tell you all you need to know.

In fairness, it was the first red flag of the season, so I suppose the drivers have been reasonably well-behaved.

[skells22]

The championship leader in that same race just picked up a 30 sec pen for track limits

[strider]

He also just picked up a lucky win in the feature race 3 when da Costa took out Magnussen, who had led from the start, on the last corner of the last lap!

[skells22]

I wonder if Da Costa might pick himself a grid pen for Spa because of it

[strider]

He should, but will he be at Spa? I thought he was mainly doing GP3 this year, which is why he knew Ricard so well because that's where they do most of their testing.

[skells22]

or one of those 30 sec pens then

[strider]

Yes, 30 seconds it was, which dropped him to 9th.

[bella]

on a more serious note, i think they need to look at the start procedure at paul ricard, and if it's the same person who did it when they had that pile up in the lmes (?) race, reassign them to paperwork duties. their instinct reactions when there's something wrong are completely all over the place. you simply can't have that much damage being caused to cars because of a mix-up over lights.

[Mekola]

Brilliant news for the Piquet family: Nelson's future son-in-law, Felipe Nasr, did a superb weekend at Paul Ricard, winning two of the three races.
Their current representant in Europe is doing well...

[bella]

Originally Posted by Mekola

Brilliant news for the Piquet family: Nelson's future son-in-law, Felipe Nasr,

what's the phrase, if you can't beat them, join them?

[strider]

Originally Posted by bella

on a more serious note, i think they need to look at the start procedure at paul ricard, and if it's the same person who did it when they had that pile up in the lmes (?) race, reassign them to paperwork duties. their instinct reactions when there's something wrong are completely all over the place. you simply can't have that much damage being caused to cars because of a mix-up over lights.

Not sure if this link will work, but this is what happened from Felipe Nasr's car. As it was the reverse grid he was in the middle. You see the start, then everyone in front slow down, as does Felipe, and then someone comes flying over his right rear wheel: http://www.felipenasr.com/video/vide...sg_share_video

[mllevy]

anyone has a link to da costa and magnussen clash? (video)

[strider]

You'll have to wait until it's on TV to see that, although if there was a camera on Nasr's car for that race it should have a perfect view.

[strider]

Originally Posted by strider

You'll have to wait until it's on TV to see that, although if there was a camera on Nasr's car for that race it should have a perfect view.

I've now seen the TV footage and from that you would definitely say it was da Costa's fault. I understand that his own on-board camera suggests the same.

However, whilst at Spa I was given an ear bashing to the effect that it was actually Magnussen's fault because for him it was it was win or bust; coming second was not an option. Apparently the on-board footage from Nasr's car confirms this, but the only official comment I could get from Carlin was that da Costa had apologised, so that was that.

What the footage allegedly shows is that there were two contacts and that in the second da Costa had taken his hands off the steering the wheel and that was why he was penalised.

Thinking about it, it's an instinctive thing to take your hands off the wheel because you don't want your hands to be injured as the wheel is banged around, but it does mean that you're no longer in control of your car, so on balance I think the Stewards got it right, although a reprimand would probably have been enough. No penalty could give the win back to Magnussen.