Team West-Tec F3 Crowned European Open Formula 3 Champions at Barcelona
Team West-Tec added the overall Teams Championship title at Barcelona to the Copa title already confirmed as the 2011 European F3 Open Championships reached an exciting climax at Barcelona on 30 October.
After all team drivers featured at the sharp end in a wet free practice day, a qualifying red flag was rather a spoiler as four of the team’s pilots had their fastest runs ruined by an RP Motorsport car in the gravel.
A typically exciting Barcelona first corner for race one saw Fabio Gamberini eliminated and Victor Correa’s car damaged, though Correa was able to bring his car home seventh with Sam Dejonghe not far behind to take his fourth Copa win of the season.
Sunday’s feature race two saw Sam, Victor and Fabio squabbling over what would have been outright podium positions, although Sam was forced to retire early on – amazingly the first time all season he didn’t finish on the Copa podium. Fabio was eliminated in contact between him and Monje while passing race one winner Amberg, and Victor was unfortunately knocked out late on by Fontana who was then later penalised for over-aggressive driving.
All was not lost though as an impressive drive from Tatiana Calderon brought her through to record her first points finish in a solid eighth place overall, and Luca Orlandi made it a double visit to the podium as he secured a combative third in Copa for the season, behind team mates Fabio and Sam.
John Miller, Team West-Tec:
We were unlucky not to get better race results in Barcelona as, like always, our drivers had the pace to win. But we have had a fantastic year, winning four of the 16 races outright and taking 14 race wins in the Copa Class to be 1-2-3 in that.
Thank you to all of our team drivers, and sponsors, without whom none of this would have been possible.
Winning the Teams Championship overall is a great testament to everybody on the team, who have worked so hard. I will be looking forward to seeing the number 1 on one of our cars next year, and also looking forward to the team defending that title!
Gavin Wills, Team West-Tec:
All of our drivers this year scored points, four were on the overall podium and we won races outright with three different drivers – feats unmatched by any other team!
However, there is no time for complacency as we start testing next week as we start a busy test programme to choose who will drive for us in 2012, to maintain our record as the most successful team ever in the European F3 Open.
We are also looking forward to getting the first of our new F312 cars from Dallara so that we can start testing and mastering that, which should be a very exciting new chapter for us.
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