新闻 - Wheeler Notches 4th Consecutive Custom Series Top-5

Wheeler Notches 4th Consecutive Custom Series Top-5

American up-and-comer Nick Wheeler punched his ticket to his 4th overall top-5 in as many attempts this morning, taking 4th place on the final stage of Le Tour de France VLI at Mas du Clos.

It's the second time Wheeler has run the French custom series, finishing 5th overall in Le Tour de France XLIII. This session of the series was hotly contested with 7 drivers recording multiple top-5 finishes, 5 drivers recording multiple podiums, and 19 drivers slotting into the top-10 at least once in just 6 races.

Ultimately Italy's #11 driver Peppo De Peppis ran away with the overall victory, recording 5 wins in 6 races, only missing the top of the podium once to Ireland's #1, Colin Davis - who finished 2nd overall after starting the final stage just 8 points in front of the 5th place driver, Peder Skram (NOR).

The anticipation was intense going into stage 6, with 2nd - 6th all up for grabs, but with Davis and Portugese #3 Serg Stan putting in their strongest runs of the series, Wheeler and Skram were left out to battle for 4th.

Wheeler was heard in the pits after the race saying "I love series like these. On any given day, one of about 12 drivers could take a shot at a podium. There's a lot of top-level talent here, and finishing 4th among them was an accomplishment that didn't go unearned. I just can't help wondering if we hadn't got that DNF on stage 2, maybe we'd be on that overall podium today."

Inevitably, a reporter asked Wheeler about Rage and it's potential involvement with the French custom series. "We run season series and a few single races each week together. We don't even talk about custom series. Allow me to put the data sharing rumors to rest, yet again. This was me, and my crew. We took 4th without any help from other drivers, against a field of drivers that included 8 national top-10's and really a 9th in De Peppis at #11 in a country whose top-30 is better than 90% of the field in any race. Rage drivers are plenty good on their own."

So, according to Wheeler, Rage has had nothing to do with his 4th Top-5 custom series result. It seems Rage has very little to do with any of it's drivers successes outside of F3 America. It's open to interpretation, but this could be Wheeler's statement that there's just a set of good drivers in the Rage-painted machines. Their drivers have filled grandstands and driven the media to a weekly frenzy even away from their series races. Maybe Rage is just what F3 needed after all.