Nicolai Kjaergaard took the spoils in British F3’s Saturday race at Donington Park for Carlin Motorsport, while teammate and polesitter Billy Monger hit strife early in the race.
Jamie Caroline was second ahead of Double R’s Krish Mahadik, while Monger battled back to claim fourth from Kush Maini and Ayrton Simmons.
Manuel Maldonado was seventh ahead of series leader Linus Lundqvist, who climbed from a lowly 14th on the grid.
Kjaergaard says that all he can do is keep taking points away from Lundqvist, starting with Race two tomorrow and praised the speed of his Carlin team.
“It is certainly the best I can do, the start went to plan and we led from start to finish. We have shown all weekend we have the pace, it was mega in the race with me and Caroline (Jamie) being really fast compared to the field. That shows how good the Carlin car is and it’s promising for Sunday.
The race was run in greasy conditions with the elements having been changeable all weekend, tomorrow’s forecast is similarly as uncertain. That does not faze the Dane
“We’ll see how the track conditions are tomorrow but we have shown that we are fast in the dry and the wet. If it is wet then it will make race two really interesting. We’ll see what happens in Race Two but I am aiming for another win tomorrow.
“It was a drying track so it was hard to know where to go. You had to keep going and keep pushing as there was more and more grip throughout the session. That was the difficult part because when you’re leading you don’t want to push too hard and go off so you have feel your way forward, whereas Jamie had a bit of a gauge because he could see where I was and whether there was more grip or not.”
With Lundqvist having held a seemingly unassailable 111-point lead coming into the weekend, Kjaergaard has cut the deficit by 22 points to 89 and hasn’t given up on the title with five rounds to go.
“We can only keep going like this and hopefully Linus won’t be too close to us, so let’s see how far we can push the championship. I want to at least postpone it until Silverstone.”
The IndyCar season has reached its conclusion, this is it. 85 laps will decide who is crowned 2018 IndyCar champion… but those will be no ordinary 85 laps. There will be drivers, some rookies, some more experienced, with nothing to lose mixed among drivers who have absolutely everything to lose at what is expected to be the last Sonoma race for the foreseeable future with Laguna Seca coming onto the scene.
Cautions proved to be crucial last time out at Portland with Alexander Rossi’s otherwise perfect race being hampered by one that was caused by his very own teammate, Zach Veach. Championship leader Scott Dixon had a frightening opening lap, getting caught up in a collision but somehow coming out unscathed, before going onto finish ahead of his main title rival in Rossi and extend his championship lead.
Pole sitter Will Power, driver of the #12 Verizon Team Penske IndyCar Chevrolet V6, leads the field at the start of the Grand Prix of Portland Sunday, September 2, 2018 on his way to a 21st place finish after gearbox issues during the Verizon IndyCar Series race at the Portland International Raceway in Portland, Oregon. While mathematically still in contention for the Verizon IndyCar Series Championship heading into the double-points season finale at Somona, it’s a challenging scenario. (Photo by Scott R. LePage/LAT for Chevy Racing)
In amongst those story lines, it was easy to lose the fact that Takuma Sato took his third career IndyCar win and his first for Rahal Letterman Lanigan with a inspired strategy call and an impressive final stint.
If Portland was good, Sonoma promises to be even better…
Last year Sonoma staged the showdown between Josef Newgarden, Dixon and Simon Pagenaud. Newgarden came into the race with a slim four-point lead over Dixon, but the latter struggled in the race and was unable to get ahead of Newgarden. Pagenaud, meanwhile, rolled the strategical dice with a four-stop strategy, as opposed to the usual three, and it paid off with the Frenchman winning the race and taking second in the championship off Dixon. It was, however, Newgarden who took the title and with it the #1 plate for this current season… something that he had hoped to defend, but that looks less than likely now.
Josef Newgarden, driver of the #2 hum by Verizon Team Penske IndyCar Chevrolet V6, celebrates winning the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series Championship with a second place finish Sunday, September 17, 2017 during the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, California. Newgarden edged out teammate and 2016 Champion Simon Pagenaud, driver of the #1 DXC Technology Team Penske IndyCar Chevrolet V6, who won the race. (Photo by Michael L. Levitt/LAT for Chevy Racing)
The title permutations for this season are numerous with four drivers in with a shout of the title, even if two of them have a very small chance…
Away from the title race, there are a few driver changes for the last race of the season. Juncos will not be seeing out the season having taken part in 12 races in their debut year, meanwhile fellow newbies, Harding Racing, will field a two-car team for the first time this season, giving Indy Lights champion Patricio O’Ward and runner up Colton Herta their IndyCar debuts. Elsewhere, we’ve still got Santino Ferrucci at Dale Coyne, Jack Harvey in the Meyer Shank/Schmidt Peterson entry and Carlos Munoz in the #6 Schmidt Peterson, as they all were at Portland.
For most drivers, this weekend marks the end of the season and a chance to end it on a high; for others, it’s a crucial weekend to show potential 2019 employers that they are worth a seat. And then, for Dixon, Rossi, Will Power and Newgarden, but mainly the first two, it’s the most important weekend of the season to get right and to have a good result… a championship depends on it!
The main championship still hangs in the balance, but two awards of a similar nature have already been handed out. Honda have clinched the manufactures title having won 10 of the 16 races so far and having had the measure of Chevrolet throughout the season.
Josef Newgarden, driver of the #2 hum by Verizon Team Penske IndyCar Chevrolet V6, takes the checkered flag to win the 2017 Verizon IndyCar Series Championship with a second place finish Sunday, September 17, 2017 during the GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, California. Newgarden edged out teammate and 2016 Champion Simon Pagenaud, driver of the #1 DXC Technology Team Penske IndyCar Chevrolet V6, who won the race. (Photo by Scott R. LePage/LAT for Chevy Racing)
The other award is that of ‘Rookie of the Year’ which has, of course, gone to Robert Wickens who remains in hospital in Indianapolis after his Pocono crash. Without that crash, Wickens’ rookie season was one of the best there have been in recent memory, though he somehow missed out on that illusive win. The latest update on Wickens was a rather sobering one, with the full extent of his injuries revealed, but he’s starting the road to recovery and that’s the most important thing.
With all the Mazda Road to Indy championships concluded, IndyCar are the sole series at Sonoma, meaning all the focus will be on that one race, and it’s an important one! Practice and qualifying are both streaming as normal in all the usual places while BT Sport 1 have the race, however, it is a bit of a late one for UK viewers.
For the last time this season, the timings for the weekend are as follows:
It was one of the most dramatic races ever – It’s worth mentioning also that the team hadn’t done that well that year, with numerous DNF’s and a very slow car as well. However, when the team changed their designer, bringing Mike Gascoyne on board and he introduced a new floor and sidepods. Damon Hill drove the improved car to fourth in the German and Hungarian races, the two races before Belgium.
During the Friday’s free practice sessions, Damon placed the car fourth and then third fastest, showing the changes were making a dramatic difference. Then in qualifying Damon put the car third on the grid, ahead of Michael Schumacher and behind only Mika and David in their McLaren Mercedes.
In the wet and raining warm up on Sunday morning the two Ferrari’s led the way, with Michael ahead of Eddie Irvine, whilst Damon was sixth.
At the first start there was a massive accident taking out nine cars. The drivers who didn’t restart were Rubens who was injured, Olivier, Salo and Rosset.
The rain eased off and after the clean up that saw so many cars out, the grid lined up for a restart with the drivers opting to switch to intermediate tyres.
At the start, Damon Hill took the lead, but Mika Hakkinen spun at La Source and was hit by Johnny Herbert who clipped the front of the McLaren. With Mika and Johnny colliding at the first corner, the safety car came out for a couple of laps whilst the mess was cleared up.
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At the restart after those safety car laps, Jacques passed Jean Alesi, moving into fourth place. Seven laps into the race, Damon and Michael were lapping a full three seconds faster than all the other drivers and were eight seconds ahead of Eddie Irvine who was third.
After eight laps, the rain started to fall harder and Michael Schumacher took the lead from Damon, out braking the Brit into the bus stop chicane. Once there, with his set-up on his Ferrari set to the track getting wetter. Each lap saw the German pull away from Damon and the lead by lap 13 was ten seconds.
Lap nine saw Eddie spin off and damage his front wing and further back the remaining Stewart driven by Jos Verstappen retired after his Ford engine failed. Twelve laps in and Michael had a nine second lead over Damon. Williams driver, Heinz Harald Frenzen was now in third place, but Jean in his Sauber was actually catching the German ahead of him. On lap 14, Frenzen ran wide into the gravel in the final third of the lap, and Jean passed him, moving into third and was now lapping faster than Damon. The lap times were starting to increase as the rain began to fall heavier and Jacques had now caught his teammate. On lap 16, having not stopped for full wets the Canadian spun out and retired from the race. The result of that was our top three was now Michael, Damon and Ralf.
However, the race was to have a dramatic moment on lap 25, when Michael struck the rear of David’s McLaren as he was coming through to lap him, and this ripped off his right-front wheel and suspension, and David’s rear wing being knocked off! The two drivers completed the lap, Michael driving on just three wheels, but then Michael stormed down to the McLaren pits and had a go at David. He was pushed away by his own team who had tried to stop him from going down there in the first place.
The net result of this was that Damon was back in the lead. A couple of laps later, Damon ran wide at the bus stop chicane and took a skip over the grass. No big drama though, as he had a good lead over his teammate. In third place by this point was Jean Alesi in his Sauber and at points, he was lapping faster than the two Jordan’s ahead of him.
The following lap saw an identical crash – Fisichella in his Renault hit the rear of Nakano’s Minardi as they came down to the bus stop chicane, with the result that he lost control and also hit the barrier at the start of the pit lane. A small fire started on the side of the car, which was put out quickly and given the position of the car, race control released the safety car which stayed out for five to six laps whilst the mess was cleared up. A number of cars pitted during the safety car period and Damon managed to pit and re-join in the lead.
David’s McLaren had been rebuilt with a new rear wing and re-joined the race in seventh place but was four laps behind the sixth-place driver. With 12 laps remaining, the safety car was still out there but preparing to pit and the race would restart.
With 10 laps remaining, Damon had everything under control and was pulling away from his young teammate, Ralf, who in turn was keeping a good gap to Jean in his Sauber and four seconds covered the top three with eight laps remaining, but the gap then started falling as the rain eased off and with just five laps remaining just three seconds covered the top three.
Three laps to go and Damon had opened up a bit more of a lead now with the rain falling harder again. Jarno Trulli, running in the final points position was lapped safely by Damon on lap 42.
The final lap passed without incident and Damon Hill crossed the line to win his twenty-second race and Jordan’s first. Ralf took second place and Jean Alesi took Sauber’s first podium in third place with a brilliant drive. Heinz Harald-Frenzen was fourth and Pedro Diniz, driving for Arrows was fifth and taking the final points position of sixth, Jarno Trulli in his Prost.
I’d say, that this race is definitely one of my favourites, and not just because Damon won, but for the incredible drama and excitement it brought to the those who watched.
2017–18 Formula E champion Jean-Éric Vergne has said that he has been approached by an F1 team over a 2019 race drive.
LAT Images / Formula E Media
The former Toro Rosso F1 driver revealed the contact in an interview with crash.net when asked about his chances of returning to Grand Prix racing:
“It’s a possibility. It’s funny how the world of motorsport changes. Three years ago, I don’t think anybody would have called me from F1 and said: ‘Hey, do you have a contract for next season?’.
“When you change your state of mind, when you change a little bit how you work, you see the results straight away. You see it in the results, and you see it in how people look at you and how they speak to you. When you start representing a brand [like Formula E], it changes a lot of things.”
LAT Images / Formula E Media
Vergne’s comments have come amid a breakout year for the Frenchman, in which he took four Formula E victories en route to the season four title with Techeetah, as well as an LMP2 class win at Le Mans with G-Drive (although this was later taken away for a team technical infringement).
They also follow a series of surprise announcements in the F1 driver market over the summer, which will see Daniel Ricciardo move from Red Bull to Renault and Fernando Alonso step away from the series in 2019.
Vergne’s previous F1 tenure spanned three years at Toro Rosso between 2012–2014, in which he partnered future Red Bull graduates Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat. He was dropped from the Red Bull programme for 2015 in favour of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, and spent two full seasons as a simulator driver at Ferrari before leaving the F1 paddock completely in early 2017.
Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
Who might Vergne’s F1 suitor be?
Although Vergne confirmed he had been approached by an F1 team for next year, he gave no clues as to which team was interested in his services.
The most obvious possibility is his former employer, Toro Rosso. The Red Bull junior team is in need of at least one new driver for next year—with Pierre Gasly set to replace Ricciardo—and proved last year with Brendon Hartley that calling back ex-academy drivers is an option when an F1-ready protege isn’t available.
The chances of Vergne wanting to return to the Red Bull fold after the manner of his 2014 exit are slim—although Vergne hasn’t necessarily said he’s entertaining the offer he’s received, for that matter.
Haas were said to have had an interest in Vergne ahead of their maiden campaign in 2016, and may do so again as they weigh up alternatives to Romain Grosjean. Williams may also have been the ones to offer Vergne a 2019 drive, as Lance Stroll’s expected move to Force India will leave a race seat open at the Grove team.
Nicolai Kjaergaard was relieved to return to the top step of the podium to complete a strong weekend at Brands Hatch.
Kjaergaard’s win backs up a third place in Race One and an impressive rise to ninth in the reverse grid Race Two.
The Dane led home Carlin teammate Jamie Caroline for a Carlin 1-2, while championship leader Linus Lundqvist maintained a healthy advantage with third place.
Kjaergaard was quick to praise his Carlin team after ending a run of one podium finish in six races.
“Carlin have had mega pace all year and prepared a fantastic car, it’s great to be back at the top step of the podium after two average weekends. I’m really, really pleased.
“The start was good enough and after that all I had to do was a decent job and it’s difficult to overtake, don’t make a mistake and stay consistent.”
Despite a 111-point deficit to Lundqvist, Kjaergaard says there is still motivation for the rest of the season.
“Obviously we want to do as well as we can at Donnington and that means wins. I can’t control what he does, but I’m going to try and win as much as possible as I still have second place to play for.”
Jamie Caroline’s dominant display ensured that he continued his winning return to Carlin with victory in Race One at Brands Hatch.
He led home Double R’s Linus Lundqvist and Nicolai Kjaergaard, the former extending his championship lead to 125 points, while Billy Monger was fourth.
Sun Yue Yang made it four Carlin cars in the top five ahead of Kush Maini in sixth, with last year’s winner Krish Mahadik edging out Manuel Maldonado, Tom Gamble and Sasskorn Chaimongkol.
Caroline, who’s replacing the injured Clement Novalak, was delighted with his second win in four, and praised his relationship with Carlin.
“It’s a shame we didn’t start the season! It’s been great to link up with Carlin again, every time I come into the weekend it’s done to me because the car will be good, it adds a little pressure to do well.
“Quick teammates push me on a little bit, obviously I’m here as a sub for Clement (Novolak, who has a broken thumb) so I am trying my best to do a better job than them really. I wouldn’t say I’m doing much better job but I’m doing as good a job as I can given that I’ve not had as much time in the car its my second weekend in F3, we got a race win at Spa albeit a reverse grid win but a win’s a win.”
After winning from eighth at Spa in the reverse grid race, Caroline was happier with a more traditional route to the flag, and credited an aggressive formation lap build for building a three-second lead early on in the race.
“Here a lights to flag win always feels a bit better, after all these years it’s great to be driving for Carlin again, two wins in two events isn’t bad. I got a lot of heat in my tyres, I’ve never worked tyres harder and I was knackered after that! I pushed like I was on a qually lap from the off, got the gap and then it was about maintaining that gap and looking after the car.
£I wish this was until the end of the season but I think it’s until whenever he’s fit enough to come back in, it may be Donnington clashes with his Euro programme, fingers crossed I can get something together for then.”
After a difficult Spa two weeks again, Kjaergaard was relieved to be back to form this weekend.
“It was great to get back on the podium after such a long time, I’d have preferred P1 or P2 after starting second but we got on the podium and the fastest lap, which is important for the Race Three grid.
“There’s still second on the table and I want to finish the season as well as I can.”
Linus Lundqvist had earlier pledged to go all out for the victory despite a huge points lead, but was satisfied with second place on Saturday.
“I wouldn’t say that I gave up the win after qualifying (fourth) but around Brands it is hard to overtake. There wasn’t going to be much chances of moves unless someone made a mistake, we made a good start and got to second on old tyres while the Carlin boys were on new ones.
“I’ll take another podium and extending the championship lead.”
Billy Monger feels that global motorsport is as safe as it can be in the present climate and that you “can never predict everything” when it comes to the issue of safety.
Monger lost both of his legs in a freak British F4 accident at Donnington Park last year and praised the work done by authorities to make the sport as safe as possible.
“Motorsport is as safe as it can be at the moment, the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to make it safer, there’s been so much pioneered over the years that if we were racing with the standards that we had back in the 80s and 90s it would be worse, we’re in a much better place now.
“There’s still stuff that you can improve on, with my accident they’ve made changes to the F4 cars so that hopefully the same thing that happened to me won’t happen again, we can do our best to try and eliminate everything.”
Monger thanked well-wishers for their continued support, and said that they played a big part in getting him through the ordeal after his accident.
“The support I’ve had has been crazy, I can fault it and it’s been overwhelmingly good and I only hope that others in this situation get the support I got because the amount of support I got after what happened to me really helped me pull through.”
The 19-year-old from Reigate qualified third on the grid for Saturday’s British F3 race at Brands Hatch, and says that the infamous “leggie” celebration – drinking champagne from his prosthetic leg in a reference to Daniel Ricciardo’s “shoey”, may return after it debuted at Spa.
“I said to the team that if I win this weekend then they’ve all got it drink out of it, not just me so that’s the goal to get everyone drinking out of my leg. I don’t want to overuse it but it will come out again, but I’d love to do it while winning.”
Monger says that the celebration came about after a chat with an ex-soldier wounded while on tour.
“The leggy came about as I’ve recently spent a lot of time with some ex-military people, one in particular told me that he sometimes drinks out of his leg when he gets drunk, so I thought that “I’ve never tried it, why not?”.
“The podium at Spa was a great result, it just popped into my to do it with some champagne on the podium. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, it’s a first for me.”
Double R’s Linus Lundqvist may have a 120-point lead in the British F3 series, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be settling for anything less than a victory,
A good weekend in Spa that saw the 19-year-old take his first double-victory of the season has seen the Swede’s lead extend to more than a weekend’s total.
But that doesn’t mean Lundqvist is taking it easy despite his big lead.
“From a championship point of view, it is about staying out of trouble and getting on the podium but I go racing to win. I do this because I love winning and I love racing, around this circuit you need to qualify well and if we get up there we’ll see what we can do.”
That approach does not mean that Lundqvist isn’t thinking about his potential championship success.
“I’m not going to be one of those drivers that lie and says that he’s not thinking about the Championship because obviously you do and it’s looking very good right now.
“It’s motorsport though, and looking back last year here there was a treble-DNF in F4 for me so if we have one of those weekends the gap will shrink very quickly. I’m taking nothing for granted, but all of this proves that we’re doing it right. I’m enjoying it.”
Lundqvist’s cause has been helped by Nicolai Kjaergaard’s sudden loss of form. The Dane was level on points with Lundqvist at Snetterton, but a run of only one podium from six races has seen him drop well.
“I should not take pleasure from other people’s misfortune,” said Lundqvist when asked about his consistency relative to his rivals.
“I was happy with the way I produced the result. It was the first double win of the season so I felt great, to do it at Spa as well is amazing because it’s a legendary track and I had a lot of sponsors and friends there so it was very nice to produce those results in front of them.”
Lundqvist was coy when asked about his plans for next season, although he is likely to move up to international racing.
“Nothing is decided for next year, it is no secret that you need a good budget. My first aim is to do well in this series and hopefully win the championship and we’ll see what my sponsors think and whether they’ll come along for next year. We know what we want to do.”
IMAGE: Jakob Ebrey, via BritishF3.com http://www.britishf3.com/british-f3-news/bh-gp-practice-report-2018/
Lanan’s Kush Maini insists that he remains focused after conceding that winning the British F3 championship is unlikely.
Maini trails leader Linus Lundqvist by over 140 points with nine rounds left, starting at the Brands Hatch GP circuit, but says that the motivation is still there.
“You always want to go out and do your best. Nicolai (Kjaergaard, second in the standings) also had a bad weekend at Spa and he’s in range.
“So after all the bad luck to be in that position I am pretty happy. I just have to keep pushing and we’ll try and get him.”
This is the first tie that the 17-year-old Indian has ever been on the Grand Prix circuit, but he isn’t fazed by his lack of track experience.
“Even the Indy Circuit is not a straightforward track, and this is my first time on the GP circuit and I’m sure that will not be easy either. It’s the same for all of us that haven’t been here though. You just need to go in and get a rhythm and debrief afterwards to see what we can change.
“I spend a lot of time at iZone simulators, so I know roughly where to go and what lines to take. Every time you jump in for real it is always a little different, you have a lot more different factors to think of so I’m confident.”
Maini was non-committal on his plans for the future but hinted at moving up the Junior Formulae ladder.
“We’ll wait and see how we finish this season before deciding whether or not to move up to a bigger car.”
Maini’s brother Arjun was at the centre of the Santino Ferrucci controversy at last month’s British Grand Prix, when the American drove into the back of his Trident F2 teammate on the cooldown lap.
Kush feels that Ferrucci’s emotions got the better of him at Silverstone
“I think something was going on in his mind, maybe he was frustrated as Arjun was quicker. I can’t say too much but it was all a little unnecessary.”
The British F3 series heads to Brands Hatch this weekend with a clear championship leader, while a fight for second place is hotly contested between three drivers.
Two wins at the Spa-Francorchamps overseas round has given Linus Lundqvist a 120-point lead over Denmark’s Nicolai Kjaergaard – the Swede has a small mathematical chance of wrapping the title up by Sunday.
Kjaergaard is trailed in second place by Kush Maini (27 point) and Tom Gamble (31) in what is now a race for best of the rest, although has taken only one podium and two retirements from the last six rounds after a difficult two meetings.
If Lundqvist was dominant in Belgium, Gamble was the main threat to the 19-year-old with two second places and a retirement, while also taking pole position to lead the Jack Cavill Pole Position Cup for 2018.
The Nottinghamshire teenager must rue the engine issue that stunted his progress from Sunday at Rockingham to the Sunday at Silverstone, before he was allowed to change it.
Like Kjaergaard, Maini is another one to have started brightly but fallen by the wayside as the season wore on. An impressive Silverstone meeting where he could have won two races, he lost 60 points to Lundqvist to effectively end his championship hopes.
Meanwhile, Jamie Caroline won from eighth in race two at Spa on his first F3 weekend, while Billy Monger will be looking to make the podium as he did last time out, debuting the unique “leggy” celebration inspired by Daniel Ricciardo’s “shooey”.
Kirsh Mahadik will be looking to repeat his victory here last year in the F3 series, while Ayrton Simmons will compete in only his second weekend in the series alongside his British F4 commitments.
With Brands Hatch the setting for many a classic race over the years, a new batch of younger driver will be hoping to make their own piece of history this weekend.
