Persberichten - F3 Masters - Pau Review: The Thrilling Setup

F3 Masters - Pau Review: The Thrilling Setup

Again, 40 drivers on the field, new faces and new drivers on the field and we could see another brand new champion, back on the same 5 tracks, but here's a twist; almost half of the races will have rain involved so it's going to be a really interesting one, the only meeting where rain isn't involved is Zandvoort. With Michael Damon Novikov, Chloe de St. Germain, Paolo Nannini, Petter Solberg, Szilvester Szalonna, Ivan Kalinin, Razor Rushman and Bartolomeu Jarbas all potential favourites to win the title but we never know who will stick there until the end as proven before.

Qualifying:
Qualifying got underway and Szalonna set the benchmark time for pole earlier with a 1:13.861 until Chloe de St. Germain went out and put better to go on provisional pole and leading a female 1-2 with Karina Sette until Petter Solberg Jr. came through and split the girls to go on the front row, St. Germain got threatened by Kalinin first who put in a promising Sector 1 until a small mistake through Turn 5 put him out of contention for pole, next was Bartolomeu Jarbas who went purple and was looking good until a lock up at Turn 10 ended his chances, same for Michael Novikov who made the same mistake and both of them had poor exits which hindered their laps and put them well out of the top 10, both barely making just outside the top 15.

Sprint:
First race of the season got underway and it was raining, wet enough to start on wet tyres, Chloe de St. Germain led from pole from Solberg, Sette, Szalonna, great start by Kalinin up 3 places to 5th, Jackson Ickx become the first retirement on lap 9 with a transmission problem, St. Germain extended her lead to almost 5 seconds while the rain sustained, Solberg was running in a comfortable 2nd while Sette was still under threat from Szalonna, Kalinin and Reckziegel lurking behind, pitstop period happened on Laps 28-32, nothing changed except that Szalonna managed to get the undercut done on Sette and took the podium spot away from her, safety car got deployed on Lap 39 when Philip Goldberg aquaplanned at Turn 5 and lost it crashing into the side of an innocent Alberto Latorre and swerved back into the wall, safety car came in on Lap 44 and we were back racing again but not for long, Nannini and Novikov came to blows at Turn 6 and found themselves in the wall and the race came to an end behind safety car with 4 laps to go with St. Germain leading from start to finish from Solberg, Szalonna, Sette, Reckziegel getting ahead of Kalinin, Lawley, Nalbandian, Jones, Kulwicki rounding out the top 10, final points went to Paulposichon, Wigzey, Rushman, Carlotti and Jarbas.

Feature:
Feature was dry, Chloe de St. Germain led from Solberg who was having to fend off Szalonna who was on a mission, some blistering pace early on but struggled to find the way past the Viking until he did on lap 25 and started to hunt down St. Germain, gap was 2 seconds about until the pitstops, Szalonna went for the overcut and just missed about by a few tenths and was forced to do the pass on track, The French Maiden kept her head cool and resisted to every one of Szalonna's attack lap by lap until the pentulmate lap, she threw away the win by locking up and understeering wide at Turn 10 allowing Szalonna to slide through into the lead and take the win from her, Solberg completed the pdoium, a long way from Sette, Kalinin, Lawley, Reckziegel, Kulwicki with his best ever rresult in 8th, Paulposichon and Rushman rounding off the top 10.


See you at Monaco where things are about to get tasty...