The fourth weekend of the 2015 FIA Formula 3 European Championship was held at Monza, along with a mid-season test, when Team West-Tec F3 showed good form with Raoul Hyman ending the test in fourth of the 34 runners.
For the race weekend, Raoul impressed again in qualifying one and to line up in a very competitive fourth place on the grid. Dropping a place or two at the start, Raoul steadied the ship, and started to apply pressure to those ahead. With the top six battling effectively as one at some stages, Raoul was able to overtake and battled long and hard with Antonio Giovinazzi and Charles Leclerc (first and second in the Championship standings) and led them both for many laps. Starting the last lap in fourth position, and challenging for third, kerb-thumping at the final chicane saw the cars three abreast along the back straight with Raoul dropping to sixth in the process - a disappointment but nonetheless a good result after a very impressive performance, and a debut Rookie podium visit for the young London law student.
Fabian Schiller had qualified in a disappointingly low position but made up a brilliant 14 places before being rudely pushed off the track and into retirement at the Variante Ascari midway through the race.
For race two, Fabi made a great start and was quickly up into the top ten chasing down Stroll and Giovinazzi before those two had an enormous accident and Fabi's car was damaged by a loose tyre from Stroll's wreck. Raoul was also on the move though and climbed up to ninth position, although he dropped to tenth on countback due to the race ending under a red flag.
Race three was another violent affair with Fabi being forced to retire after another car climbed over him at the first corner and Raoul again drove well to pass several cars before the race was again brought to an early conclusion by a red flag.
Raoul Hyman: It was great to finally return to the podium, and start scoring some points. It was great racing at the front again, and I enjoyed my duel with Antonio and Charles. We need to keep working hard, and building on this result to close the gap to the front running teams. Whilst we may have surprised a few people this weekend, and I want to be fighting inside the top ten in every race!
John Miller, Team West-Tec F3: Monza was a challenging weekend for all of the teams, with a lot of incidents and accidents on track. Raoul showed great ability to take his best qualifying position to date and I was proud of the way he raced in the lead group to such good effect. Fabi didn't have a lot of luck but qualifying in the midfield is a lottery on the run down to the first corner. We go to Spa next and I am sure we will be fast again as we also had real front-running pace there last year.
Team West-Tec F3 made its FIA F3 debut in 2014, finishing sixth in the Teams Championship in just its first year, working with HWA-Mercedes as engine partner. Team West-Tec F3 enjoys team support from Nielsen Chemicals, Eibach, B-G Racing, Mechanix, MIS Locktons and Freem GB.
