This year, the Canadian grand prix had no surprises. It was a quiet Sunday evening for most of the drivers and especially for the top three.
Vettel’s flying lap on Saturday’s qualification session, was enough to give him the pole position and on Sunday, the German, lead the race for 70 consecutive laps. Bottas, who started second, had to defend his place, on the first lap from Max Verstappen.
The Dutch had a very good Q3 session on the previous day and managed to finish third and get a place on the podium in the Canadian Grand Prix. The only moment where he battled Bottas was at lights out, but the Finn defended very well his place and remained second.
Valtteri Bottas, finished second for the fourth time in seven races this season, he is the driver with the most second place finishes. The Finn, shows his skills this season and it won’t be long till he celebrates his first victory in 20018.
I have to admit that the race didn’t meet my expectations, but still some interesting conclusions can be made.
Ferrari dominated in a circuit which suits Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton won six times in ten attempts in Canada. The Silver Arrows won the last three Grand Prix in Montreal, but this time the team was not able to challenge Ferrari and Hamilton was struggling to stay close to Ricciardo for the fourth place. The British champion complained about the low power that the Mercedes’ engine delivered this week and lost the 14-point lead which he had in the drivers’ championship.
‘’There were lots of hesitations, engine dropping in power, so I thought the engine was going to blow.’’ Hamilton said.
Mercedes had to pit, Lewis, earlier that it was planned to remove some bodywork panels and reduce the engine temperature.
A very productive weekend for Renault, the yellows had the pleasure to see both drivers in the top-10 and they collected some crucial points for the team. Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz finished seventh and eighth respectively. Renault, is currently fourth in the constructors’ championship with 56 points, 16 points ahead of McLaren. The team, looks confident and they have a comfortable lead from McLaren, which is currently struggling to follow the pack.
Charles Leclerc, a young and ambitious driver, which many fans wanting him in Ferrari as soon as possible, finished once again in the points. The rookie driver from Monaco, is keep impressing us with his results. The sixth place in Baku, was not a firework, the Monegasque had to fight with Alonso for the tenth place in Canada. Fernando’s retirement allowed him to finish in the top-10 and score another point for Sauber, which has 12 in total and is ahead of Williams. Charles has 10 points in the championship so far and he is fourteenth, ahead of Vandoorne.
Williams, had another bad weekend. Last season, Stroll scored his first points in his home race, but this time the Canadian retired on the first lap, due to a collision with Brendon Hartley. His team-mate, finished seventeenth.
It was Sebastian Vettel’s 50th victory, a great achievement for the German driver.
There are still many races in the 2018 calendar, it is clear that the drivers’ championship will be a battle between Vettel and Hamilton, but Red Bull is a very capable team and will affect the final outcome of the year.
Texas Motor Speedway delivered what we’ve come to expect from it, a sensational race with numerous cautions and unexpected turns. Last week’s Race 1 winner, Scott Dixon, took a dominant win over Penske’s Simon Pagenaud who graced the podium for the first time this season, managing to hold off a charging Alexander Rossi.
Will power ahead of Scott Dixon. Image courtesy of Team Penske
Before Texas, Dixon had only led 39 laps in the whole season but he put that right by leading 119 laps in the night race, over double that of anyone else. After battling with Tony Kanaan early on, Dixon had got into the top three, behind Will Power and Robert Wickens. Once those two had swapped positions, Dixon quickly picked off the struggling Power before passing Wickens for the lead shortly after the second round of pit stops. It turned out to be a lead that he didn’t surrender for the remainder of the race, finishing a good five seconds ahead of his nearest rivals to take his 43rd career win, his second in a week and, most importantly, the championship lead. The #9 Chip Ganassi driver now boasts a 23-point lead as he, along with Kanaan and Sebastien Bourdais, heads off to Le Mans.
Second on the road was Pagenaud who finally scored his first podium of what has been a very troublesome season. The 2016 champion initially lost places and his race was looking far from good when all three Penske cars started experiencing extreme tyre blistering, it was a wonder Pagenaud even made the end of the race. Already struggling with the inferior fuel mileage on the Chevrolet’s compared to the Honda’s, Penske were left with no choice but to call both Pagenaud and Power in after teammate Josef Newgarden’s tyres had blistered incredibly badly, leaving the canvas of the tyre exposed. After the final pit stops had been made and the field went green after the third and final caution, many doubted Pagenaud’s ability to even make the end of the race but the cooler temperatures that had come with nightfall favoured Pagenaud, meaning he could make the end and hold off Rossi, taking a very respectable second place finish.
Josef Newgarden. Image courtesy of gm.com
For a long time, it looked like Rossi would be winning in Texas. The #27 Andretti driver had superior pace to those around him and was willing to risk it all for overtakes around the outside that most drivers wouldn’t dare attempt, carving his way through the pack from his starting place of eighth. A fuelling issue after pitting under the second caution could’ve cost Rossi any chance of a decent result but he was saved by two factors: 1) they were under caution and 2) there were only six cars on the lead lap. After that drama, Rossi quickly recovered the lost ground to be all over the back of Pagenaud on the third restart however, the Frenchman proved a tough nut to crack and Rossi was eventually forced to concede defeat. That podium finish has put Rossi back up to second in the championship, overtaking Power and now just 23 points back from Dixon.
Power himself certainly had a race to forget; the #12 Penske driver had run well for the first part of the race but, like his teammates, struggled with tyre blistering as well as his car balance. His race ended when Zachary Claman De Melo was trying for an overtake around the outside and Power turned up on him, putting both of them into the wall. Power was quick to remove any blame from the rookie or though wouldn’t fully take it himself.
A much-needed decent result finally came for the otherwise incredibly unlucky James Hinchcliffe, scoring his first top ten finish since the Indy GP and first top five since Barber. Hinchcliffe qualified way down in fifteenth and, with rookie teammate Wickens in fourth, the pressure was on for a good result. The #5 Schmidt Peterson driver progressed well in the first laps, eventually making his way up to shadow his good friend Rossi. As the race went green after the last restart, Hinchcliffe was right in the battle for second with Pagenaud and Rossi but, after dropping slightly in the closing laps, fourth was the best he could do – still, a very important, confidence-boosting weekend for Hinchcliffe.
The same could almost be said for teammate Wickens who ran an excellent race, passing on the inside and outside before dicing with Rossi and even taking the lead for four laps. However, it all came tumbling down on Lap 171 when the rookie sensation tangled with Ed Carpenter. It was Carpenter who took the blame for the incident, Wickens was on his inside to lap him when Carpenter turned down on the rookie, sending the pair into the wall and ending both their races. An unfortunate end to what was a very promising weekend but Wickens wasn’t the only rookie shining for once.
Andretti’s rookie Zach Veach was running an amazing pace with all the confidence of an old-timer, gaining ten positions in the first fifty laps to be running in sixth. This performance, like Wickens, soon came crashing down. Veach got up too high, brushing the wall and breaking his right-rear tow-link, just as Kanaan had done 50 or so laps previous. The other rookie to come to blows was Matheus Leist whose car caught fire just five laps into the race.
It’s a well-deserved weekend off for the IndyCar paddock who are next out at Road America on 24th June.
Full Race Result
Scott Dixon
Simon Pagenaud
Alexander Rossi
James Hinchcliffe
Ryan Hunter-Reay
Graham Rahal
Takuma Sato
Sebastien Bourdais
Ed Jones
Charlie Kimball
Spencer Pigot
Max Chilton
Josef Newgarden
Marco Andretti
Gabby Chaves
Zach Veach (R)
DNF – Zachary Claman De Melo (R), Will Power, Robert Wickens (R), Ed Carpenter, Tony Kanaan, Matheus Leist (R)
The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is one of the greats on the calendar. The last time Ferrari won in Canada was in 2004. Ferrari’s last pole in was 2001, but Vettel changed that.
Sebastian Vettel – 9.5
Faultless, the German had it covered all weekend. Pole position on Saturday and lights to flag victory on Sunday. Ferrari sand bagged like they do on Friday and just gathered information on the lower power settings. Vettel is a driver that likes his figures and stats, maybe a little annoyed he didn’t get the hat-trick of pole, win and the fastest lap though. Ricciardo set that on his final tour. He retakes the lead as we head back into Europe. 50 wins and counting.
Valtteri Bottas – 8
Not many would have expected for Bottas to come away with the bigger points haul for the Silver Arrows, let alone out qualify his team mate. A strong weekend for Bottas and retakes third in the driver’s championship. He showed a bit more resilience at the start keeping Verstappen behind something in previous races he lacked. Drove a great race, pretty boring for him though as wasn’t challenged throughout.
Max Verstappen. Image Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
Max Verstappen – 8
Proved some doubters wrong this weekend, so hopefully no headbutting happens. Under fire for a string of mistakes the Dutchman had something to prove, which he did. He put that anger into the wheel of his Red Bull with a superb third in qualifying and race. Got close at the start but no collision with anyone. Held the pressure in the early stages and placed it late on. Very much a confidence booster for himself, Red Bull and indeed his fans.
Daniel Ricciardo – 7
Was a tenth or so behind his team mate all weekend. He missed out on quite a bit of action on Friday with an engine problem not related to his failure in Monaco. He tends to not run well around Canada on Saturday and was out qualified again by his team mate. A better Sunday as he finished two places higher than he started thanks to some great tyre management. Still a great win in Monaco but must look forward nowas we re-enter Europe.
Lewis Hamilton – 6
For a track where Hamilton took his maiden win in 2007, and has 6 wins at he was very off colour. Could only manage P4 on Saturday and with problems in the race resulted him finishing P5. A poor race from a man who has such high standards of himself. Has the excuse of a 6 race old engine whilst others had upgrades but Bottas was in the same situation.
Kimi Raikkonen – 6
Another weekend where in qualifying he blew it, when he ran wide at turn 2, flashback to Baku earlier in the season. The car had the pace to win as it did in Vettels hands. The Finn with fresher tyres after making the stop later than the others around him looked strong for a podium, but he never challenged. He faded to finish a lonely P6.
Nico Hulkenburg – 8
144 races and counting for Nico and his quest for a podium. They should maybe create a space for the best of the rest after Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull as more often than not this has been the German. Qualified in P7 and finished P7. Not much else he can do really as his car restricts him to move higher up the field.
Carlos Sainz – 7
A solid haul of points for Carlos as Renault strengthen their claim as the best of the rest. Besides the collision at the restart with Perez he had a fairly quiet race. Did well to overcut Ocon at the pit stops.
Esteban Ocon – 7
Ocon had a great weekend considering his team made a mistake in the pits on raceday. The Frenchman battled back but it seems like most suffered from following a car.
Charles Leclerc – 9
This kid has talent, true talent. Charles bounced back from another disapointing home race where his brakes failed to score more points for Sauber. Had a great battle with Alonso and for a while kept him at bay. We are seeing a future Ferrari driver in him, it is only when now they decide, could it be next race, or 2019?
Pierre Gasly – 8
A good recovery drive from Pierre as Honda’s power looks strong albeit still a little bit worrying with reliability. The Frenchman has used the most components out of the entire field. Was hampered in qualifying with the old engine at a power based track. Due to penalties he started on the back row of the grid. Avoided first lap and restart collisions to finish P11.
Romain Grosjean – 8
The Groundhog’s revenge, Romain qualifying lasted seconds as his engine let go after exiting his pitbox. A poor groundhog was collected by the Frenchman on Friday. Romain started last but with a great stint on the ultrasoft tyre put him back amongst it all and finished ahead of his team mate. No points but did so well considering, good Sunday, needs a good weekend though, home Grand Prix up next.
Sergio Perez – 6
A great effort from Sergio to make Q3 on a track that suits the Force India better than Monaco. Overall though was off the pace on his team mate by 0.6 in the final session. An erratic restart caused him to collide with a Renault. Damage was never made clear but never recovered from it.
Kevin Magnussen – 6
Started in one of the best places on the grid P11, one up on his team mate due to his troubles but Sunday was a shocker. He was never at it, and finished a woeful P14.
Marcus Ericcson – 5
Leclerc is making Ericsson look a little bit silly now. Ericsson scored points in Bahrain but hasn’t seen any yet. He exited FP3 early after a collision with the wall, and never recovered from that.
Stoffel Vandoorne – 4
Wheres Stoffel? A quiet weekend once more for the Belgian. He was out qualified by his team mate and was nowhere on Sunday. The pressure continues to rise. I feel his future is dependant on Alonso’s decision.
Sergey Sirotkin – 5
Another lacklustre display as he finishes last of the cars to take the flag. A mistake in practice, he never got to grips with a track he’d never raced at. Kubica continues to look on in the background.
Fernando Alonso – 7
His 300th Grand Prix weekend and one in his collection to forget. A man who is in a fork on the in his career. He out qualified his team mate and was running well in the race to be best of the rest before the exhaust failure mid-race. Le Mans is next on the agenda which he hopes to win for the second stage of ‘The Triple Crown.’ Think the result there will give us a bigger idea of where the F1 great will be next year.
Lance Stroll – 5
The Canadian had a weekend in his home country to forget. The Williams is a bit of a dog this year. He hit the wall in practice and then exited again in Q1. Sunday didn’t last long after losing the rear and hitting Hartley. Claire Williams pinned the sole blame on Hartley. Looking at various camera angles and public opinion the blame swings back to Stroll. 91% of people blamed Stroll on our twitter poll. (@PitCrew_Online)
Brendan Hartley – 6
One of his best Saturday’s in the car, the Kiwi qualified ahead of both Mclaren drivers and wasn’t far away from the Q3. It was a shame that Sunday ended so early, going into the end of sector 1 he was outwide on the marbles alongside Stroll. He collected the Williams and lost control of his car. Poor placement you could say from Hartley, but unlucky at the same time.
Final Thoughts
Mercedes have an excuse with their engine not being ready but certainly did not expect Hamilton to finish as low as fifth at one of his favourite tracks and lose the lead. Vettel takes the smallest of leads to the next race.
F1 returns to Europe next time as we have a triple header! We return to France for the first time since 2008 at a track that hasn’t seen competitive action since 1990. The Paul Ricard circuit is a favourite for some to test at. It followed by Austria and then Britain the following week.
Will Mercedes have their engine ready for France? Do Ferrari have the better car again with their new bargeboard improvement?
Renault has warned Red Bull that it will be forced to withdraw its offer of a 2019 supply if the latter cannot reach an engine decision before the Austrian Grand Prix.
Red Bull initially said it would use the Canadian Grand Prix, in which both Renault and Honda introduced their first major upgrades of the season, to judge which of the two engine manufacturers to ally with in 2019.
But after the race Christian Horner said the team would use the next round in France to gather more data before announcing their final decision at their home race in Austria.
Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
However, Renault’s managing director Cyril Abiteboul has warned Red Bull that if they insist on waiting until Austria to decide, they will only have Honda to choose from.
Speaking to Motorsport.com, Abiteboul said: “They have all the information they need now. I don’t see why they are going to further delay the decision.
“As per the regulations, [the deadline] was May 15, and then we accepted to extend that a little bit on the back of twelve years of good collaboration. But past a certain point, the offer we made…will not stand.”
Renault Sport F1 Team
Abiteboul added that Renault was “already behind” with sourcing components for its 2019 plans, and would have to prioritise that over waiting for Red Bull:
“They wanted an offer, we’ve made an offer, that offer has to be accepted in the next few days.
“We are not talking about Austria. Austria, we won’t be here, and [Red Bull] will be talking directly to Honda.”
British F3 championship leader Linus Lundqvist says he and his Double R team have struck the right balance between pace and consistency this season after another strong weekend at Silverstone.
While championship rivals Kush Maini and Nicolai Kjaergaard toiled in Northamptonshire, Lundqvist won, had second and a sixth across all three races.
And the Swede was keen to stress the importance of picking up points in every race.
“Every time we speak it’s been about consistency and we showed that today again, Kush and Nicolai being behind me and as they were the closest rivals I’m really happy with the second place.
“We’ve been in the mindset, with the team having won the championship in 2016, that if you want to fight for the title you have to be consistent. We’ve shown that through every race weekend that we’ve a race each weekend and that we’re not just picking up seconds and thirds, we’re actually there on pace. We’ve found a very good mix between raw pace but also consistently scoring.”
While he now has a commanding lead in the standings after making gains on Kjaergaard and Maini over the past two weekends, Lundqvist knows he can’t afford to relax.
“We’re only halfway through the season, there is still a long way to go and a lot can happen. Two DNFs and our lead is gone.
“It’s about staying focused and taking valuable points and hopefully we will be able to fight for the wins in future rounds too.”
While Gamble won, Lundqvist was not disappointed to finish second in the final race of the day as he finished ahead of Maini and Kjaergaard and further extended his lead to 56 points.
“Without Tom it would have been a perfect race, all in all you always want to fight for the win and I tried to put pressure on him but he was just a little too quick for us but looking back, it’s been a solid weekend.”
Tom Gamble wants more consistency for the remainder of the season after a Super Sunday for the Nottinghamshire teenager.
Gamble was third early on Sunday before winning from the first corner of the evening race after an engine change Saturday night when an issue was discovered.
Since his maiden pole and win on the Saturday at Rockingham six weeks ago, it’s been difficult for the 16-year-old with disqualifications and collisions since then.
“I can’t thank Fortec enough for deciding to change the engine and it was the right call. I’m delighted to be back on the top step because since Rockingham it has felt like ages.
“A podium today was great earlier, last race I made a good start and got him at the first corner and it was a case of being consistent and building a gap.”
Gamble is a comfortable fourth in the championship and is looking up rather than down the standings after improvements this weekend.
“There’s no pressure, I’d like to make the top three in standings and I think it’s definitely possible as long as we stay consistent because Snetterton and the second half of Rockingham was a nightmare. We want to get as many wins as we can.”
And he isn’t fazed about the prospect of racing at Spa-Francorchamps in six weeks’ time despite having never done so before.
“A few of the competitors around me have been to Spa before but we all do the two-day test there earlier in the year so I know where I’m going. If we had not have changed the engine then it would have been a lot harder.”
Alexander Schjerpen and Jack Mitchell took an ultimately comfortable win at Silverstone for Century Motorsport’s #43 BMW team.
After a poor start in which he fell to 16th, the team recovered back to the front and took advantage of the dominant Equipe Verschuur #10 McLaren suffering a suspension failure while leading by half-a-minute.
And Schjerpen felt the team had to work hard to earn their second straight victory.
“We knew that we were going to be strong here at this track. We struggled a little in qualifying so going into the race we knew the pace was there so we had to push hard.
“I had a bad start, I’m not sure what happened there but others went and I didn’t so we ended up P16 and it was hard work in the first stint, Jack did a great job in his first stint to get us back to the front.”
The Norwegian took the first British GT win of his career with Mitchell on Sunday and left nothing on the table in his second stint.
“I finished my second stint with qualifying laps and we were pushing very hard, we were unsure where exactly we were with the stops and cars pitting around us, it was a hectic race and we’re super-happy that we finished at the front.”
And he had a lot of praise for his team’s preparation of the GT4 BMW M4, having had bad luck earlier in the season.
“The BMW is a brilliant car, every time I get into it I can throw anything at it and it responds. We’ve been playing around a little with set-up in practice yesterday and we found a good setting with the car.
“Century Motorsport are doing a brilliant job with it, and it’s fun to drive.”
TF Sport’s Mark Farmer was relieved to win the Silverstone 500 event with Nicki Thiim in #11 Aston Martin after an earlier collision with the #47 Aston of Graham Davidson left him facing the wrong way.
Thiim held off the Lamborghini #33 duo of Jon Minshaw and Phil Keen, with Flick Haigh and Jonny Adam were third.
Davidson was given a 10-second stop/go penalty for causing the collision with a move that Farmer branded “silly”.
“I thought it was game over because of our 10s success penalty in the last stop.
“It was a move that wasn’t on really and he ruined his own race and nearly ruined ours. It was silly really because they were lightly fuelled, they were quick and could have gone well, he was catching me and another couple of corners and he’d have done it easily. I was quite cross because it was never on.”
Farmer paid tribute to his TF Sport team for their strategy that saw the team negate the 10s penalty to squeeze ahead of Keen’s Lamborghini at the final stop, a move that proved crucial as the #33 could not land a blow.
“The team played a masterstroke on strategy, that really worked for us and Nicki drove like he stole it. The team executed the pitstops flawlessly.”
Thiim meanwhile was delighted after TFSport secured their third straight podium and their second win in three races.
“It was a great weekend, we started off really well but we struggled a little with the set-up because of the new surface at Silverstone. It was really hard at the end with the tyres going away.
“The team did the right strategy in my eyes and it was a really good race after the opening stint. I’m so happy to win this meeting.”
Lucas di Grassi ended his season four win drought by rising from fifth to first in Sunday’s Zurich ePrix, while title challenger Sam Bird finished second to slash Jean-Éric Vergne’s championship lead by almost half.
Lucas di Grassi, Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler / Courtesy of ABB FIA Formula E
The race began in mixed-up fashion, with Techeetah’s Andre Lotterer starting well from second to threaten maiden polesitter Mitch Evans off the line. But although Evans managed to defend from Lotterer and drop him back into pressure from third-placed Bird, the Jaguar driver was unable to pull clear of the cars behind as he struggled with rising battery temperatures.
This brought di Grassi right onto the back of the podium pack, once the Audi driver dispatched with Jérôme d’Ambrosio for fourth place. By lap 13 di Grassi had passed Bird at the hairpin—taking advantage of the Briton’s battle with Lotterer ahead to close in on the pair—and three laps later did what Bird was unable to and took second from Lotterer.
With Evans’ battery issues continuing out in front, di Grassi was quickly onto the gearbox of the Jaguar—and on lap 18 the outgoing champion made his move on the run to Turn 1, and breezed past into first place.
Once in the lead di Grassi continued to build a gap to those behind him, and at the end of lap 39 crossed the finish line 7.5s ahead to take his first and Audi’s third win of the 2017–18 season.
Jean-Éric Vergne, Techeetah / Courtesy of ABB FIA Formula E
But while last season’s champion enjoyed his best Formula E weekend since last year’s Montreal finale, current championship leader Vergne suffered huge losses at the Zurich ePrix.
Coming into the weekend with a mathematical chance of clinching the title, Vergne qualified near the back of the grid in 17th while his only remaining rival Bird was set to start from the second row.
Vergne made good progress in the early stages and before the halfway stage had already got his Techeetah up into the lower points. But on lap 17 Vergne came together with Felix Rosenqvist while taking eighth, sending the Mahindra driver into the wall at Turn 1 and triggering a full course yellow to remove the debris.
Felix Rosenqvist, Mahindra Racing / Courtesy of ABB FIA Formula E
This proved to be the defining moment of the race, as shortly after the halfway pitstops it was announced that Vergne—along with Lotterer, Evans and Sébastien Buemi—had been given a drive-through penalty for speeding under the full course yellow.
These penalties drastically altered the order. With fewer than ten laps remaining, Lotterer, Evans and Buemi dropped from second, third and fourth respectively, while Vergne was once more put outside the points after his trip through the pitlane.
Worse still for Vergne, the penalties for those in front meant that Bird was elevated to second place, where the DS Virgin driver finished to add another 18 points to his championship challenge.
Jérôme d’Ambrosio, Dragon Racing / Courtesy of ABB FIA Formula E
D’Ambrosio completed the podium in third, his and Dragon’s first podium since the 2016 London ePrix, while Lotterer held on for fourth.
Buemi recovered from his penalty to take fifth, one place higher than he started, after using his FanBoost to pass Evans in the closing stages—Evans lost a further place to Nick Heidfeld before the end, and finished behind the German in seventh. António Félix da Costa and Oliver Turvey were promoted into the lower points by the penalties ahead and a retirement for Nico Prost, and finished eighth and ninth respectively.
Meanwhile, Vergne fought his way back into tenth place to take the final point of the day. The Frenchman had been set to add another point with the fastest lap, until his Techeetah teammate Lotterer take that honour away in the final stages.
Vergne’s low finish and Bird’s podium mean the gap at the top of the standings is now down from 40 to 23 points with only the double header in New York—which Bird dominated last season—left to go.
Young Singapore driver Pavan Ravishankar took his first win in his debut F3 season on Sunday morning at Silverstone.
After coming to grief in Race One, Ravishankar started pole in the reverse grid race and didn’t look back as Sun Yue Yang fought to hang on to second with Tom Gamble an impressive third.
And Ravishankar was delighted to see his improvement this season laid bare.
“I love this circuit, it is a bit of a shame with the race yesterday because we had front wing damage and I had to drop back. We showed that we have the pace now.”
Ravishankar built a lead over Yang in the opening stages of the 10-lap race and controlled the race from there, something that was a deliberate tactic.
“I really pushed a lot in the first few laps because I knew that they would be fighting behind and that if I got a gap I’d be fine. Once I saw the fighting behind me I just realised that I had to just manage the gap.”
And the 18-year-old paid tribute to his Double R team for helping him settle during his first season in Europe.
“The tests were positive and I’m still new to Europe so I’m going to work as hard as possible between now and Spa.
“It’s been very difficult, with the weather and the cold conditions being something that I’m not used to so that was very difficult. The team has helped me settle in so much so a big thanks to them for supporting me through the tougher times.”
Meanwhile, Gamble has targeted more consistency after a run of bad luck since his first pole and win at Rockingham six weeks ago.
“After Rockingham on that Saturday we were top of the championship but since then we’ve had a lot of bad luck, I just need to get back on track, get some better qualifying and get closer to the front.”
An engine problem halted his progress on sAturday where he could only finish tenth, but an engine change brought about better luck on Sunday morning.
“We had issues yesterday with the engine and it was lacking power and costing us time, the guys at British F3 checked the engine and allowed us to change it so we swapped it last night.
“Everyone at Fortec did a great job changing it over, thankfully there were no problems today and we had great pace today.”
