With four rounds now completed, Allard Van de Hoeven jumps up to first place in the Q1 championship, 14 points clear of the absent Fulvio Fenix with Hank Belane now in third.
Allard not only snatched pole form Thomas Kimmick by 0.03 of a second but lead for the entire 34 laps and also grabbed the fasted lap point as well, to round off a perfect result.
Qualifying was very close with the top five drivers separated by only 0.52 of a second but it was Allard who made a good start to lead into T1. There was action behind as Joseph Eltham made contact with Laurent Londes, Laurent holding onto a lurid slide to keep third place as Joseph lifted. Further back there was some pushing, shuffling and warping, Ernie Wright was unfortunate to find the gravel trap from which there was no return.
Joseph got a good drive out of the hairpin and made a daring move up the inside of Laurent under braking for the Spoon curve to retake third place. While this was going on, Allard and Thomas were making a break for it up front. Joseph’s race ended a couple of laps later when he lost the back end under braking for T1, overheating his tyres and allowing Laurent into third.
Back in the mid field, Hank, Steve Hayward and Dai Feng were all going well and having a good battle. Meanwhile, back at the front Thomas was keeping Allard honest and got within striking distance on a couple of occasions.
Thomas pitted first and Allard pitted a couple of laps later but managed to increase his lead over Thomas and was never challenged again. Thomas lost concentration and got stuck with an off at last chicane allowing Laurent through into second place and Hank to take third at the line.
So that’s three wins out of four for Allard now and some great racing throughout the field. Steve, Jorg, Omar, Andre and Bouke all had their best results here and are really getting to grips with F3 racing.
For the next two races left in this quarter we leave the current F1 tracks and head off to Thailand on the 18th April for another 60 minute race and finish of this first quarter championship at Hockenheim for two sprint races. See you there!