British F3, Round 7, Spa-Francorchamps

[Last2LiftOff]

British F3 racing at Spa this weekend, gotta have a thread for that. So if the regulars will allow me, I'll do it.

I see Stephen Jelley's on pole for the first race but that's pretty much all I know at the moment. I couldn't find a timetable but I think Round 13 is Friday @ 18:35 and Round 14 on Saturday @ 11:45 (from the Spa 24hrs site and all provisional I'm sure). Wonder how they're getting on with the new pitroad entrance....what I wouldn't give to be there.

[brakedisc]

me too. Come on strider where are you? We need you to keep us up to date with the facts and the gossip.

[macsport]

Schedule for weekend is here. I always leave the schedule on the 'ticker' at the top of the home page when the events are underway.

Asmer crashed heavily in free practice and not on the pace.

Engel was pipped to pole in both sessions by Jelley and Kennard but isn't worried as there is ample opportunity to overtake. Having said that it would be great to see Steve or Jono on the top step at last.

Gonzalez was really on it in the second qualifying session and could be a dark horse in the race later.

Perez has the upperhand in the National Class, well ahead of Frankie.

Keep checking the championship website (www.britishf3international.com) which is updated as soon as I can with the latest news and audio interview files.

Cars going out now for the race at 18:35 (local)

[runshaw]

Is Ali Jackson racing in the championship class for the rest of the season?

[macsport]

Originally Posted by runshaw

Is Ali Jackson racing in the championship class for the rest of the season?

Yes Ali is running in the Championship Class for the rest of the season. I did an interview with him on Thursday which you can listen to here

[Last2LiftOff]

Having just watched some of the Donington highlights not surprised to hear Jonathan Kennard went well including a win.

Excuse me while I try and get caught-up.

[strider]

Sorry not to have been posting - I wasn't sure anyone ever read what I write!

It's been a busy few days, sort of. Because BF3 was supporting the FIA GT 24 Hours of Spa, everything was brought forward.

Thursday was the busy day with two free practice sessions and a qualifying session. The F3s were first on the track at 09:00, then there was huge gap before 2nd free practice, followed by another huge gap until first qualifying either side of 7 o'clock at night! Maro Engel was fastest in both free practice sessions, which suggested he might be top dog at this meeting, as he was last year, but when it counted in the qualifying session, Stephen Jelley beat him to pole.

At the end of the second free practice session, Marko Asmer had a huge accident, I think at the fast left-hander with no name. He turned out for the second free practice session, apparenty in the spare car, which was odd, because spare cars are not allowed. Then the Hitech guys worked feverishly ro repair the original car, which they got into some sort of shape by the end of Q1, but only in time for Marko to do 2 laps. He was 29th fastest but as he hadn't completed 3 qualifying laps he was dumped to the back of the grid. Times and an almost accurate report here.

More in a moment...

[strider]

Before I forget, one of the best things about Spa this year was the weather. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were great. It was just a shame about Saturday...

Anyway, Friday was more relaxed, even if the times when things happened weren't great. Q2 was around lunchtime and this time Jonathan Kennard was the man to beat Maro Engel to pole. Sam Bird was 3rd, as he had been in Q1. The Hitech guys had worked until 02:30 in the morning to get Asmer's original car into a better state, but he still qualified only in 7th. Otherwise it was pretty much as normal. Sergio Perez was the pacesetter in the National Class this weekend.

Race 1 (at 18:27!) was interesting without being a thriller. Sam Bird took the lead initially, then Stephen Jelley grabbed it back, but Sam had re-established himself by lap 3 and then managed to break the tow and cruise to the flag. It was his best victory to date because he beat everyone fair and square, whereas in Bucharest four cars fell off in front of him on the first lap to make it easier. His team-mate, Maro Engel, stopped early with gearbox problems.

Jelley and Jonathan Kennard continued to dispute 2nd place, which changed hands several times times, but Kennard had it on the last lap and took fastest lap. While they were battling, Atte Mustonen crept up to join them, but wasn't quite in touch.

Overshadowing even Sam Bird, the drive of the race came from Marko Asmer who sliced through from 30th to 6th in just 12 (admittedly quite long) laps.

Report here and full results here.

[strider]

And so to Saturday. It had been raining heavily in the night and was still raining when we got up, but an hour or so before the race it stopped enough for umbrellas not to be required. Spa drains pretty well, because there is barely a level section anywhere. As for the race itself, the basics are here.

Really, in my view, things started to go wrong before the race. In wet conditions that the drivers haven't experienced before during the weekend, the normal procedure is to give them 2 exploratory laps from the pits, rather 1. This works fine as race winner Jonathan Kennard suggested and, most importantly, it doesn't affect the duration of the race itself.

But no, the Race Director decided the race should be started behind the Safety Car for 2 laps. Actually, that's a very loose description, because it was more like a Dodge 4x4 and its speed reflected that. Those first two laps took TEN minutes - that's a third of the whole race duration! Eventually things got under way and the cars raced for three and a half laps until Ricardo Texeira crashed heavily at the top of Eau Rouge. Cue Safety Car again. Meanwhile the Recovery Unit, which you might expect to burst into action at a moment's notice in such a situation, wandered gently to the scene of the accident and eventually recovered the wreck, but meanwhile the Safety Car was taking a record-breaking SIX minutes to complete lap 7, which only left time for one more Safety Car lap before the chequered fag came out.

I felt sorry for Jonathan Kennard. It took the edge off his first win, but worse was to come when the Race Director penalised him for not following the Safety Car closely enough! He probably thought it was about to expire.

If you're interested, the full 'results' are here. Marko Asmer wasn't very impressive for once and dropped a couple of places, although Mario Moraes looked like he might have done something interesting if he'd been given the opportunity.

It was a bad note on which to end what had otherwise been a good week, and there were some unhappy looking faces in the F3 paddock afterwards.

[brakedisc]

Excellent report Strider. I bet I am not the only one to enjoy your input. Thanks again.

[Last2LiftOff]

Yeah, thanks for that Strider. Usually when it's a wet track it makes things more interesting, unless of course, the officials make a poor call. Can't wait to see some onboards of these guys going around Spa. Seems the new pitroad entrance was not an issue for these cars, no mention of it at least. Next-up Silverstone!

I'm still playing ketchup, so again pardon me...nothing like coming-in at the tail end of a season. Championship standings to date, and the National Class. So Frankie Cheng's not going to walkaway with the National class, he has to duke it out with Sergio Perez. I know there's still plenty of racing to go, but can anyone catch Marko Asmer?

[strider]

Thanks for the kind comments, guys, much appreciated.

I reckon you're right, L2LO, The National Class will go down to the wire. Sergio Perez had a dominant weekend at Monza, then it was Frankie Cheng's turn at Brands, only for for Sergio to reverse the tables at Spa. I'd guess Frankie knows Silverstone better than Sergio, so it may be his turn there.

Marko Asmer has a 60 point lead for the title and there are only 84 points on offer over the 4 remaining rounds, so it's pretty much a done deal. Spa was a tough weekend for Marko, but he still came out of it with two reasonable points scores. I don't think the other teams could quite believe it!

I'm looking forward to Silverstone already. It's a great place to go, but for some reason none of the various circuits there seem to suit F3, so I'd guess the results will be decided by qualifying.

[macsport]

Originally Posted by strider

Marko Asmer has a 60 point lead for the title and there are only 84 points on offer over the 4 remaining rounds,

Nice reporting Strider. One thing though, there are 168 points still on offer - 4 meetings x 2 races = 8 races at 21 points per race = 168 points.

I agree Asmer is looking quite comfortable but another couple of weekends like Spa and the same for Bird and we could have a grandstand finish - can but hope!

[strider]

Whoops. Never could do maths... Still, it makes it more interesting for the rest of the season.

[Last2LiftOff]

Originally Posted by strider

Great smiley.

[minimangler]

Congrats mr Sam Bird! Met his dad on saturday, and he promptly won. Coincidence? Or am I a lucky charm?!!? Hope he continues in that vein for the season now!

Will try and get some more on flickr soon, but that's Sam before Friday practice.

That is Esteban Guerrieri in the wet on Sunday, on the pit straight.

Looked pretty spectacular in the wet, some really entertaining stuff at times...

[strider]

Great photos, minimangler. I expect the Mods will prefer a link to flickr, but I look forward to seeing some more shots.

Maro Engel has spoken out about the weekend. See here. Certainly in the dry he was the fastest man on the track, so that gearbox failure in Race 1 cost him dearly.

Obviously I agree completely with his comments about Race 2, because they are pretty much the same as mine on here earlier.

[bella]

yeah, less pimping of the photos, more words about the racing!

err i can't comment on the races since i only saw race 2 (damn plane was delayed on friday), and that really didn't count much as a "race"... i did think kennard was a very lucky boy to get away with such an epic mistake at the bus stop on saturday, but was it luck when he had managed to build up a big enough gap to get away with making a mistake...

anyway, bit more generally good improvement in the facilities, but they're going to have to do something about the abuse of the runoff at the bus stop. is it really racing when you can get away with making daft mistakes and carry on almost unhindered?

maybe a row of stingers across the middle of the run off area would suffice as a deterrant

[Last2LiftOff]

Originally Posted by fota.co.uk

Watch F3 on MotorsTV 1st August 2007 at 18.03

Is that the Spa race or, not? What's the date today....

[macsport]

Originally Posted by Last2LiftOff

Is that the Spa race or, not? What's the date today....

No it's the Brands Hatch race. If you click on the logo it takes you to the TV page which gives more details of which rounds are on TV and when.

http://www.britishf3international.com/tv.php

The Spa rounds are on from the 5th August onwards.

Jeff

[strider]

Well there you are you see, when that website comes up with statements like that it must be www.BritishInternationalF3.com, but when it comes up with good stuff, then it is www.fota.co.uk!

The first chance to see Spa is at 08:00 UK time (sorry L2LO) on Channel 4 this coming Sunday.

The better shows (twice as long) are on MotorsTV several times, e.g.

11/08/07 at 16.00
12/08/07 at 03.00
12/08/07 at 21.00
13/08/07 at 05.00
13/08/07 at 15.00
14/08/07 at 23.30
15/08/07 at 19.00
20/08/07 at 02.00

MotorsTV is showing British GTs at 06:00pm tonight, but I shall probably manage to fight off the temptation to watch that...

[Last2LiftOff]

Originally Posted by strider

Well there you are you see, when that website comes up with statements like that it must be www.BritishInternationalF3.com, but when it comes up with good stuff, then it is www.fota.co.uk!

That is interesting Strider, I'd never given it a second thought. All I do is Google "British F3" (MSN Sympatico it actually) and the first one that comes-up is fota.co.uk (always wondered what the heck fota was). I could've looked further than that I suppose, I'm sure "britishinternationalF3" was on that list somewhere.

Originally Posted by strider

The first chance to see Spa is at 08:00 UK time (sorry L2LO) on Channel 4 this coming Sunday.

The first chance to see British F3 Spa out here...never.

[strider]

Google (or anything similar) will always come up with fota.co.uk, as it's been around for so long and FOTA is FIA-recognised. You should get the same result if you do a search simply for Formula 3.

For anyone who doesn't know, FOTA stands for FOrmula Three Association. Any suggestion that the title has anything to do with the Formula One Truckies' Association is strongly denied!

I'm sorry to cause further frustration by giving TV transmission times over here, L2LO, but keep watching You Tube. It's great that you're converted to BF3.

[Last2LiftOff]

Originally Posted by strider

L2LO, but keep watching You Tube

Okay. Are we there yet...'cause I got nothin'?

Originally Posted by strider

It's great that you're converted to BF3.

Oh, I wouldn't go that far just yet Strider. Where's the dang no proselytising smiley?

[strider]

Originally Posted by Last2LiftOff

Oh, I wouldn't go that far just yet Strider. Where's the dang no proselytising smiley?

You don't have to be converted exclusively to British F3; simply add it to your many interests!

I watched the Channel 4 programme from Spa today. What a fantastic circuit it is. There were some pretty cool overtaking moves in race 1, up the long straight into Les Combes being a favourite, but around the outside of the flat out Blanchimont was even more impressive.

I don't much care for the new Bus Stop. As bella has already said, there is far too much room for a driver to get away with quite a big error there and still keep his place. The exit of La Source also needs to be sorted out.

Starting race 2 behind the Safety 4x4 was a real pain. The drivers are in single file, thus removing any chance of overtaking off the line, which Sam Bird did very effectively in race 1.