2003
Avon Tyres British Formula Three Championship - Round 24,
Brands Hatch, Kent, September 27th/28th
© Stella-Maria Thomas and Lynne Waite
Qualifying
Report - Round 24:
Weather: Grey, dull
After the morning's mayhem we were down a car, because although
Will Power (Menu Motorsport) had been passed fit and released
from the medical unit, his Dallara was not in any state to
qualify. He at least knew his grid position for Round 24 in
advance. He would start last of all. Unfortunately, others
seemed far too keen to join the Australian on the casualty
list. The session was less than three minutes old when Lewis
Hamilton (Manor Motorsport) made a mistake, as he later admitted,
probably in a classic example of trying too hard too soon.
The resulting accident was enough to bring the session to
a red-flagged halt while the youngster was retrieved and the
tyre barrier rebuilt yet again. The timetable had now gone
to hell in the proverbial handcart, largely because there
wasn't a full contingent of marshals. This means that every
time there was a problem, the officials had to red flag the
session while reinforcements were moved to the scene of the
incident.
After a couple of flying laps, Andrew Thompson (Hitech Racing)
was on pole from Billy Asaro (P1 Motorsport), Eric Salignon
(also Hitech), Steven Kane (T-Sport), Ernesto Viso (P1 Motorsport)
and Rizal Ramli (Team SYR). There was very little that looked
normal about that top 6! The secret to getting Thompson to
go faster seems to be to shout at him - or at least to get
us to shout at him
At the restart Viso was straight back out, the Venezuelan
doing everything he could to try and get the edge in the Scholarship
Class title battle. He was closely followed out of the pits
by the Menu drivers, Robert Doornbos and Will Davison, with
Doornbos keen to make up for his disappointing morning session,
and Davison after another front row slot. While they were
pressing on determinedly, Ronnie Bremer (Carlin Motorsport)
was also showing strongly, though he seemed to have an alarming
twitch. Thompson was still hanging on to pole position, while
Viso was 3rd overall, which he really had no business being.
There was a quick reshuffle when Doornbos went fastest of
all, but Thompson took it back again almost immediately. With
Salignon alongside him, things were looking good for Hitech.
Asaro was keeping Nelson Piquet Jr. (Piquet Sports) out of
3rd place, and Viso and Bremer had the 3rd row to themselves.
Things started to look even better for Hitech when their 3rd
driver, Danny Watts, moved into 3rd place. However, it didn't
last long. Robert Dahlgren (Fortec Motorsport) grabbed pole,
while Viso temporarily occupied 2nd only to have Doornbos
take it away from him. In his turn Salignon raised the pace,
but he had reckoned without Doornbos. The Dutchman wasn't
finished and moved back into the top slot, being joined by
Alan van der Merwe (Carlin), who had finally decided to join
in. This was briefly to the detriment of teammate Jamie Green,
who managed to get in the way of the South African and was
pushed aside roughly for his pains.
It now looked as if you needed to be a Dutch speaker to be
on the front row, rather than a Hitech driver. Perhaps Piquet
could make up the full set (his mother is Dutch and he has
a Dutch passport as well as a Brazilian one)? He certainly
wasn't showing much sign of it at present though. At the moment
it was still Doornbos from van der Merwe, Dahlgren, Salignon,
and - inevitably - Richard Antinucci (Promatecme F3) and Ronnie
Bremer. The mystery of why those two insist on sticking together
has never been solved, but as it usually ends in disaster
they ought to stop it. Matters were made worse this time by
the insistence of Michael Keohane (Carlin Motorsport) that
he too belonged in that cluster. The potential for mayhem
was immense.
Piquet must have got wind of the Dutch-speaking criterion
now, because he moved back to 3rd, behind Doornbos and van
der Merwe. Salignon was now 4th, with Clivio Piccione (Manor
Motorsport) in 5th ahead of the Richard and Ronnie Roadshow.
It wasn't long before the linguistic pattern fell apart. It
was all down to Davison, who presumably only speaks Strine
and English. The Menu man was now 3rd, Will really wanting
to prove that the morning's effort was no coincidence.
Watts was still attempting to get himself back up there, but
he seemed very ragged through most of the corners. It really
wasn't looking good, but then neither was Green. Perhaps the
trouble with Green is that he has the talent but sometimes
doesn't have the head for the level of competition that's
found in F3. Or maybe he just needs to stop allowing too many
people to mess with his head and tell him what to do. His
concentration seemed to come back as the session drew to its
close though.
With less than 10 minutes to go, Doornbos was still heading
up the list, while Piquet was now 2nd, from Davison, van der
Merwe, Asaro and Antinucci. Asaro was obviously back in the
hunt and was looking to impress anyone who might consider
giving him a drive or even a budget for next year. However,
having been up to 4th he lost places first to van der Merwe
and then to Bremer, who was now 5th and actually looking pretty
good this weekend.
Trying to break up the party now, Watts was really on the
edge as he went for a time, while Green finally got his head
down for 3rd. Davison now edged Piquet out to make it an all
Menu front row, while van der Merwe and Green were 3rd and
4th. Further changes were put on hold temporarily when the
red flags had to be waved one more time. The guilty party
this time was T-Sport's Karun Chandhok. At least this time
the clean up operations didn't take too long and the final
section of the session was able to begin without a really
serious delay. With very little time left now it was highly
unlikely that there would be much in the way of change, and
so it proved. It didn't stop Piquet from snatching his second
pole of the day though, while Thompson was briefly 5th. He
couldn't quite hang on to it but he was still in the top ten
when the flag dropped at the end of the session.
Justin Sherwood (Performance Racing) was the next driver to
have a major spin, but at least all that happened was that
he went right through the Paddock gravel and emerged at the
far side of it without hitting anything. As he was able to
get going again, there was no need to stop the session. Keohane
was also looking very wild, but he too was able to avoid hitting
anything. It really was the end of the changes, with the exception
of Asaro, who put in a last ditch dive for it and grabbed
3rd place.
And so, for the final race of the season, the order was Piquet,
from Doornbos, Asaro, Green, Salignon, van der Merwe, Davison,
Thompson and Dahlgren. 10th was Bremer, with his best friend
in the whole world (!), Antinucci right behind him, and Keohane
in 12th. Watts, despite his best endeavours, ended up in 13th,
just ahead of Fairuz Fauzy (Promatecme F3). 15th, and in Scholarship
Class pole position, was Viso, with Piccione and Robbie Kerr
(Alan Docking Racing) separating him from Kane and Chandhok.
19th was Scott Speed (Alan Docking Racing) and Tor Graves
(Manor Motorsport) was 20th. Sherwood was 21st from Ramli,
Masato Shinoyama (Team SYR), and Hamilton, of course, was
last.
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