Linus Lundqvist says he and his Double R team have forgotten about an awful Donington Park weekend with pole position at the British F3 Silverstone Shootout.
While Lundqvist has a Championship lead of 50 points over Nicolai Kjaergaard, a terrible round in the East Midlands saw him qualify 14th and secure finishes of 9th and 15th coupled with a DNF.
“We proved at Rockingham earlier this year that we were quick in the wet and we are happy to prove that again today.
“It was a really exciting session, the car was really good and I am happy with my performance especially going into this weekend with questions about how we would perform after Donington, but we have put that one behind us and came into this one with a clear mind.”
While it would be easy to look to score good points and not worry about winning in the name of safeguarding the Championship, Lundqvist won’t be doing maths in the cockpit.
“I don’t try to focus on where Nicolai is at, I’m at the front and that is all that matters. We want to finish this year on a high with more wins and that will definitely be the target for the first race regardless of whether it is wet or dry.”
Lundqvist shrugged off his wet weather struggles at Donington to take charge of qualifying on Saturday morning.
“It’s always a bit tricky in the wet, especially when it’s a drying track because the speed you can carry differs from lap to lap and you know towards the end you can push more but you don’t want to overheat the tyres too much. I got into a good rhythm, set a quicker lap and then a few cool down laps before pushing again.”
The Swede was happy with the feel of his Double R Tatuus machine and feels that was a contributing factor to a relatively big gap by BRDC British F3 standards.
“Towards the end, it was the second to last lap that I set my best time so the track was constantly drying. It was four tenths between me and the guy in second, it was good to feel comfortable from lap one and be able to push for the rest of the session. We spoke about tyre pressures and getting into the mindset of cooling the tyres if you feel them getting too hot. Everyone did a good job.”
Double R’s Linus Lundqvist took the final qualifying pole position of the season in tricky conditions at Silverstone, while his title rival Nicolai Kjaergaard managed fourth.
A topsy-turvy start saw Kush Maini set the initial pace before Billy Monger and Tom Gamble took their turns at the top of the standings at the early stages of the session.
Lundqvist and Double R flexed their muscles from the middle of the session, and the Swede proved difficult to usurp from top spot.
Monger would later set two purple sectors before losing three seconds in the final sector on his way to second for Carlin Racing, with Gamble eventually third ahead of Kjaergaard.
Kjaergaard – who needs to put together a near-perfect weekend to steal the championship from Lundqvist – struggled all session and languished for much of the session in the lower reaches of the top 10.
Lundqvist has a 50 point lead over Kjaergaard with just three races remaining.
Clement Novolak will start fifth on his return from injury ahead of Manuel Maldonado. Ayrton Simmons goes from seventh with Krish Mahadik, Hampus Ericsson and Jamie Chadwick completing the top ten.
Marcus Ericsson has said he is targeting a move to either IndyCar or Super Formula for 2019 following the loss of his Sauber Formula One race seat.
Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team
Ericsson will remain with Sauber next year as reserve driver and brand ambassador, but has said he is also looking to continue racing with a full-time drive in another single-seater category.
“I want to race at the highest level possible [next year] because I see myself coming back to Formula One in the future,” Ericsson said.
“To be able to come back to F1, I want to stay in single-seaters and fast cars. IndyCar is the best series to do that in.
“We’re talking to some teams there and I think it is a realistic target.”
Most of IndyCar’s 2019 drives have already been settled, although seats are still available at Schmidt-Peterson Motorsports, Carlin and Juncos Racing.
Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team
Ericsson has also admitted Japan’s Super Formula is “also an option”, and that he would be interested in contesting the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
But despite insisting on a single-seater programme for 2019 to keep him prepared for an F1 return, Ericsson said that Formula E is not high on his preferences:
“It is interesting in many aspects but to stay in F1-type of driving it’s maybe not the best one.
“FE is more of a career move. There are some other options that you can keep on the F1 radar [to] come back.”
Billy Monger says he wants to be judged as a racing driver only after missing out on two British F3 victories on his return to Donington Park.
Monger had qualified on pole position for Saurdays wet Race One before a lock up saw him slip back into sixth.
He would go on to recover to fourth, before setting the fastest lap in Race Two to earn pole for the final race of the day.
Another lock up when leading from teammate Nicolai Kjaergaard cost him three places, before fellow Carlin driver Jamie Caroline broke his suspension to leave Monger third.
Despite podiums and good pace on his first return to the scene of his life-changing accident a year ago, Monger was not satisfied.
“It could have been more,” the 19-year-old began.
“I’ve been the fastest driver in all conditions this weekend, fastest in the wet on Thursday, qualifying pole on Saturday and the fastest lap earlier.
“It’s such a frustrating time as a driver when you know that the speed you have is quicker than anyone else and a couple of mistakes cost you the results you deserve.”
Monger made no excuses for not converting those poles into victories.
“I have only myself to blame. In race one, I locked up and went on the grass and it was the same again today, I was in the lead and locked up early on at the chicane and cost myself three positions.
“As a racing driver, which is what I want to be seen as, the performances in the races this weekend were not up to the standards that I need to be hitting. I have to accept that and make sure I come back at Silverstone stronger.”
Monger is looking forward to the British F3 Championship’s return to Silverstone in three weeks’ time, where he was also quick back in June.
“Obviously coming back to Donington was a bit of a challenge as everyone knows, but my performances weren’t good enough in the race. I know that I’m capable of putting it on pole position, I’ve had two this weekend so I want to keep them coming and get the results I deserve in the races.”
With a lot of the build-up to this weekend centring on Monger’s accident last year, he insists that once he got back into the car that previous events weren’t on his mind.
“This weekend I haven’t thought about it at all. Obviously that’s a good thing. I’ve shown (that it hasn’t affected me) in the way that I have driven this weekend with the speed I’ve had.
“But for a few mistakes, we should have had two wins. I’ll have to take that on the chin and not get too down about it, I have work to do at Silverstone.”
Nicolai Kjaergaard took another victory in race three at Donington Park to spark new life into the British F3 championship, with three races left at Silverstone in three weeks’ time.
Kjaergaard’s second victory completed a clean sweep for Carlin after Sun Yue Yang’s reverse grid race two win in another race that was punctuated by a long safety car period.
Krish Mahadik capped a strong weekend with another podium in second to move to fourth in the championship standings, while polesitter Billy Monger was a disappointed third after a mistake from the lead dropped him back.
Jamie Caroline broke his suspension when running second behind Kjaergaard, apparently on a kerb, to effectively cut the race to a four lap sprint.
Little changed as Kjaergaard stroked it home to complete his objective of “postponing” the championship, while Monger couldn’t make inroads on a resolute Mahadik.
Championship leader Lundqvist was only 11th, meaning the gap that was 111 points going into the weekend is now just 50 points after a challenging Donington Park experience.
Tom Gamble, who was stripped of second place in race two because of issues with nuts and bolts in his engine, suffered more engine problems and could only manage 17th after contact with Kush Maini earned him a 5.5s penalty. Maini meanwhile had a miserable 18th birthday weekend with a DNF in race two and 16th in race three.
Caroline would later be disqualified for failure to comply with double waved yellow flags.
Sun Yue Yang was the eventual winner of a race two that saw a red flag and championship leader Linus Lundqvist involved in a race-ending accident at the subsequent restart.
Yang was the beneficiary from a full reverse grid to start from pole position but in the initial staging of the race he lost his lead as the electric Tom Gamble leapt from sixth into the lead.
The Chinese driver was handed a reprieve when Manuel Maldonado brought the red flag out for an incident at McLean’s on lap one, resulting in a full race restart.
A ten-minute delay ensued, and Yang made no mistake with his second start to lead away despite another Gamble rocket.
The same cannot be said for Arvin Esmaeili. The Swede’s Douglas car was spun across the circuit and fired onto the racing line for the first corner, and the ensuing chaos claimed four victims.
Alongside Esmaeili Jusuf Owega was hit, while Kush Maini’s rear suspension was damaged and Linus Lundqvist continued his bad weekend when he was collected in the same accident.
If Lundqvist outscored Nicolai Kjaergaard by five points he would have won the British F3 title with a weekend to spare, instead after a disappointing Saturday he has lost 32 points this weekend to his nearest rival, meaning he now cannot confirm the title until Silverstone in three weeks’ time.
That brought the Safety Car out for five laps and by the time it peeled into the pits there were only five minutes of racing left.
Gamble had enough time to depose Double R’s Pavan Ravishankar from second on the penultimate lap but couldn’t make an impact on Yang.
Yesterday’s polesitter Billy Monger will start from pole position after taking the fastest lap over the first two races. Nicolai Kjaergaard was 12th after being held up by the second-first lap antics, although he will start third due to his quickest lap.
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.
