Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Turvey pinches pole from Hartley

Oliver Turvey clinched pole position for this weekend's second British Formula 3 race on the streets of Bucharest.

Turvey, who finished second to Brendon Hartley in yesterday's race, pinched pole from the New Zealander by 0.003s today with his last lap of the session.

The session was broken up into three parts thanks to a couple of errors at the fast right kink at the back of the circuit.

Atte Mustonen was first up, hitting the wall hard as he slid sideways through the corner just five minutes into the session.

After the restart, Hartley and Turvey swapped the top spot back and forth as the times dropped from high to low 1:12s

Sam Abay was next into the wall at the right kink, altough he did at least manage to drag his mangled car off the track and out of harm's way.

But it was only three more minutes until Steven Guerrero clouted the wall in the same place - for the second time this weekend - and the session had to be stopped again with his car broadside in the middle of the road.

That left just four minutes of qualifying at the end, and Turvey was the only one of the front runners to improve his time - lapping just three thousandths of a second quicker than Hartley.

"We found a little more time this morning, and I thought before the session we had the pace to get pole," said Turvey. "I knew I had to really push in the final few laps when the session restarted.

He added that he will try to put the championship out of his mind for now - he leads by 17 points with just three races left: "I'm just aiming to get a good start and win the race this afternoon, I'm not thinking any further ahead than that at the moment."

Jaime Alguersuari completed another Carlin Motorsport clean sweep of the top three, with John Martin fourth for Double R.

Hitech Racing filled row three with Max Chilton and Walter Grubmuller producing their best efforts of the weekend.

Esteban Guerrieri was top Mygale in seventh, ahead of Marcus Ericsson, while Abay's best lap before his crash put him ninth. Sergio Perez completed the top ten for T-Sport.

Newly-crowned National Class champion Jay Bridger took the class pole, ahead of Hywel Lloyd. Guerrero was third despite his accident and Stefan Wilson completed a quartet of National cars from 14th to 17th places.

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap 1. Oliver Turvey Carlin D/M 1:12.036 2. Brendon Hartley Carlin D/M 1:12.039 +0.003 3. Jaime Alguersuari Carlin D/M 1:12.535 +0.499 4. John Martin Double R D/M 1:12.959 +0.923 5. Max Chilton Hitech D/M 1:12.995 +0.959 6. Walter Grubmuller Hitech D/M 1:13.016 +0.980 7. Esteban Guerrieri Ultimate M/M 1:13.054 +1.018 8. Marcus Ericsson Fortec D/M 1:13.254 +1.218 9. Sam Abay Carlin D/M 1:13.435 +1.399 10. Sergio Perez T-Sport D/H 1:13.439 +1.403 11. Michael Devaney Ultimate M/M 1:13.506 +1.470 12. Oliver Oakes Eurotek D/M 1:13.781 +1.745 13. Ricardo Teixeira Ultimate M/M 1:13.801 +1.765 14. Jay Bridger Fluid (N) D/H 1:13.879 +1.843 15. Hywel Lloyd CF (N) D/H 1:14.143 +2.107 16. Steven Guerrero T-Sport (N) D/H 1:14.377 +2.341 17. Stefan Wilson Fluid (N) D/H 1:14.589 +2.553 18. Henry Arundel Double R D/M 1:14.660 +2.624 19. Philip Major Fortec D/M 1:15.133 +3.097 20. Salman Al-Khalifa T-Sport (N) D/H 1:15.135 +3.099 21. Atte Mustonen Double R D/M 1:16.589 +4.553

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