British Formula 3

Round 3

Thruxton

Davies wins again after red flags brought out

Qualifying:

1R.Firman 1:09.970
2J.Davies 1:10.019
3JP Montoya 1:10.292
4G.Smith 1:10.316
5J.Matthews 1:10.486

Start delayed due to drizzle - wet race declared.

The start was clean, although Firman made a complete hash of it. Montoya made a corker, and went rapidly into the lead, followed by Matthews. Davies also managed to get past Firman, who was languishing down in 5th by the first corner, as Montoya started to pull away.

As the front couple of cars started to open up gaps between each other, Firman started to make amends for his start, inching up to the gearbox of Davies. Otherwise, there were no major changes in the field, all quite happily following each other nose to tail in the damp conditions. Firman though was fired up, and in the long back sweeps he dived down the inside of Davies. Davies tried to hold on to the outside line, but was ultimately unsuccessful.

Firman was trying almost too hard. Coming out of the complex on the next lap he drifted too wide, putting two wheels onto the grass. Davies was through in a trice.

Further back, the fight between the American Brian Cunningham and Mark Shaw was extremely entertaining. Going into the final chicane, Cunningham tried to go around the outside of Shaw. He almost succeeded, but drifted wide on the exit, losing two places in the process. There was little else of interest to watch, except for Jamie Davies reeling in and climbing all over the back of Montoya. Montoya defended his line well, but lost out at the complex. It seemed that Montoya might have had a mechanical problem, as he went rapidly backwards.

Everything was static until cars 6, 10 and the frenchman Nicolas Minassien came around the start finish line. Car 6 slid wide at the first corner, and went hard into the barrier, coming back onto the track. This caused problems for the rest of the field, two cars coming together and spinning out. This set the scene for a horrific crash by Phillip Hopkins. Hopkins hit the spinning cars and was launched into the air, the car coming down and rolling end on end, spewing corners and bits of car everywhere. Marshals quickly ran to the scene and attended the driver. The race was understandably red-flagged, and the results declared.

Results

1Jamie Davies
2James Matthews +1.27s
3Ralph Firman +2.71s
4Juan Pablo Montoya +6.99s
5Jonny Kane +7.56s

Championship:

1Davies 53pts
2Firman & Smith 38pts
4Matthews 31pts
5Montoya 26pts
By Darren Galpin

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