International Race Report
German F3 - April 14, Hockenheim
By Darren Galpin

Trulli Trounces Field
Hockenheim short circuit, 31 laps, 81.65 km

Grid:
No.CarDriverNo.CarDriver
11Jarno Trulli24Marcel Tiemann
35Arnd Meier451Dominick Schwager (B)
58Manuel Giao63Nick Heidfeld
715Christian Menzel87Oliver Tichy
911Wolf Henzler102Tim Bergmeister
1125Tim Verbergt1218Max Wilson
136Rui Aguas149Sascha Bert
1556Yves Olivier (B)1653Jaroslaw Wierczuk (B)
1722Vincent Vosse1819Rolf Schuster
1950Philipp Sager (B)2021Markus Friesacher
2154Tobias Schlesinger (B)2223Andre Couto
2352Johan Sureson (B)2410Steffen Widmann
NB - (B) Denotes Class B

Jarno Trulli had a lights to flag victory in a largely processional Formula 3 race. He started on pole, with Dominik Schwager in a group B Dallara 394 an astounding 4th. A disappointing 12th was Max Wilson, winner of the non-points race here two weeks previously.

The start was uneventful, except for a couple of jumped starts, Vosse and Sager judging it hopelessly wrong. Nothing troubled Trulli though, and he rapidly created a gap.

Things were rather static for the next ten laps, with Trulli extending his lead, and the rest just following. However, this all changed on lap 12 when Giao and Tiemann made contact at the back of the circuit. Tiemann went out, while Giao limped back to the pits and retirement.

By lap 20, Trulli was lapping backmarkers, but this presented no problems to him. Then suddenly on lap 26, Max Wilson woke up and started lapping distinctly faster than those in front of him. This was the only interest in the closing stages of the race (except for Sureson missing a right front wing), and it went down to the wire. Wilson put in a desperate dive for the line off the last corner, but had to settle for fifth behind Menzel. Schwager finished an amazing 2nd.

Results:

1. Trulli2. Schwager 3. Henzler4. Menzel 5. Wilson6. Tichy

Lap Chart

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