Fantin Secures Maiden British Formula 3 Victory.

Rockingham has seen a new name etched into the winner’s roster in the Cooper Tires British Formula 3 International Series as Pietro Fantin secured his maiden victory for Hitech Racing.

Fantin assumed control of round twenty two on lap fifteen when race leader and Champion Elect, Felipe Nasr, was penalised by the race officials for not observing the Rockingham track limits – the penalty for Nasr was a drive through and this dropped him down the order.

“It feels amazing, I didn’t expect to win,” said Fantin. “I’m pleased to get the win and right now we have a quick car so starting from eighth in the next race I hope to make a good start and hope that we are able to challenge at the front again. I’m really, really happy to win, it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet.”

Fantin had made a good start from Pole Position but his fellow Brazilian driver, Nasr, made an even better start and he rocketed ahead of Fantin through turn one and had a secure lead by the time the field arrived at Deene for the first time.

Nasr then survived an early race Safety Car period and stormed to a three second advantage over Fantin before being penalised for his starting transgression. This gave Fantin the lead of the pace while delaying the crowning of Nasr as the 2011 Champion slightly, although his P6 at the line meant he could still be crowned on Sunday.

Another fast starter came from Nasr’s Carlin team-mate, Rupert Svendsen-Cook. He slotted in ahead of fellow Carlin driver, Kevin Magnussen on the opening lap. Third became second when Nasr got his penalty.

Magnussen’s race was hampered by a third lap spin. This promoted another Carlin driver, Jack Harvey to fourth which became third later in the race as Nasr was penalised and dropped down to sixth.

Carlin secured positions two to seventh, with Jazeman Jaafar ending up fourth, ahead of Carlos Huertas and Nasr. Seventh should have been the top Mercedes runner, but Fortec Motorsport’s Will Buller was given a penalty similar to that of Nasr but he failed to take it and thus was given a time penalty instead.

Buller’s penalty dropped him outside of the top ten, which was completed by Scott Pye in the Double R Dallara-Mercedes, Menasheh Idafar in his T-Sport car and Hywel Lloyd in the Sino Vision Racing Dallara Mercedes.

Honours in the Rookie Class went to Luca Orlandi and in the Team West-Tec car. His class rival, Kotaro Sakurai joined Yann Cunha and Fahmi Ilyas on the sidelines after the opening lap collision, which saw the deployment of the Safety car.

Afanasiev Momentum Continues with Lights – to – flag Valencia Victory.

Sergei Afanasiev continued his recent good form by securing his third victory of the season during the first race of the weekend at Valencia’s Ricardo Tormo circuit.  The Dams driver drove the perfect race from Pole Position to close the gap to Championship leader, Kevin Ceccon, who was only able to come home third. Splitting them was Fabio Onidi, who picked up his second podium finish of the season.

Thanks to his start, Russian Afanasiev had already opened a slight gap as the field headed into turn one and during the next few corners, that gap continued to open as the rest of the field squabbled for track position.

Onidi, from fifth position on the grid soon found himself up into second, having overtaken Adam Carroll, Ceccon and Adrien Tambay – Carroll and Ceccon followed the Lazarus driver while Tambay paid the price for his bad start as he tumbled down the order, and soon found himself ninth, with Rio Haryanto and Giovanni Venturini getting ahead of Tambay.

At the pit stops, the field was mixed up even more, thanks in part due to mistakes being made. Lap four saw the first pit stops being made and Ceccon, Haryanto, Tambay, Samuele Buttarelli and Luca Filippi.

The tyre change brought bad luck to Filippi and the Super Nova team – a lengthy pit stop due to problems with mounting his right rear tyre saw the GP2 race winner drop down to last place while Filippi’s GP2 rival, Carroll, dropped down from third to ninth after problems with his stop.

Lap six saw Onidi make his stop and the Lazarus pit crew pulled off the perfect pit stop, which allowed the Italian driver the chance to close on up Afanasiev. Onidi closed right up on the Russian for a couple of laps as he was held up by Giuseppe Cipriani for a couple of laps.

After Afanasiev made his pit stop, he was right on the tail of Francesco Dracone and he had to fight his way past, this giving the chasing Onidi the chance to cut the gap down to 0.7s.

Once the duo had moved ahead of Dracone, the Dams driver drove away from his Lazarus rival and he secured victory by 4s, and with it he became the first three time winner of the 2011 Auto GP season.

Afanasiev said afterwards: “Being on the highest step of the podium again is great, and I really have to say thanks to DAMS for that. With rain disturbing us yesterday during the Free Practice, we didn’t have much time to try different solutions, and we didn’t do any test here during the season while others did. So, giving me such a quick car they did an incredible job. The race wasn’t easy, the hot weather made it physically demanding and I had some tough moments, especially at the pit-stop and immediately after with Dracone slowing me down. Anyway he was fair and everything went in the right way. I know that now I’m really close to the Series lead, but I want to wait for tomorrow before doing the maths”.

Second Place finisher Onidi said about his race: “I’m really happy of this result. This year I had been on podium just once, winning in Monza, and the rest of the season was quite unlucky, with the injury in Donington as the lowest point. Today everything went fine right from the start, I had a very good pace and if it wasn’t for the slow laps behind Cipriani maybe I could have passed Sergei when he pitted. Anyway I’m happy with 2nd, being on podium again in Race 1 is a sweet feeling”.

Crossing the line third and completing the podium finishers was Ceccon – he spent the final few laps defending his position from Fabrizio Crestani and Haryanto, but the track layout didn’t provide many opportunities and they ultimately came home fourth and fifth.

Championship leader Ceccon said after his race: “Another podium is a very good result, especially looking to Filippi’s result. I know that Sergei is a bit closer now, but my balance is very good today. At the start I wasn’t perfect but I was third, before getting surprised by Fabio’s braking in Turn 1 and getting passed by Carroll. Anyway my team did maybe the best pit-stop of the season and brought me back to third, and from then on I just had to watch the mirrors to keep Crestani at bay. My read tyres got worn early, but Valencia is a track were passing is difficult, so I could keep my position easily”.

Rounding out the top six was Tambay, who recovered from his awful start to finish ahead of Buttarelli. Having set the fifth fastest time of the session, a penalty from Oschersleben saw him relegated to tenth on the grid but he recovered to seventh and a front row start for tomorrow’s race.

Securing himself pole position was Carroll, after his pit stop issue denied him the chance of a better result. Rounding out the top ten were Adrian Campos-Jnr and Venturini, the latter after his pit stop issue.

Auto GP, Valencia Race One Result:

Position	Driver	Team
1	Sergei Afanasiev	Dams
2	Fabio Onidi	Lazarus
3	Kevin Ceccon	Ombra Racing
4	Fabrizio Crestani	Lazarus
5	Rio Haryanto	Dams
6	Adrien Tambey	Campos Racing
7	Samuele Buttarelli	TP Formula
8	Adam Carroll	Campos Racing
9	Adrian Campos-Jnr	Campos Racing
10	Giovanni Venturini	Griffitz Durango
11	Pasquale Di Sabatino	TP Formula
12	Luca Filippi	Super Nova Racing
13	Daniel De Jong	MP Motorsport
14	Francesco Dracone	Ombra Racing
15	Giuseppe Cipriani	Griffitz Durango

Richelmi Joins Trident Racing for GP2 Finale.

After his accident last time out at Spa-Francorchamps, it was confirmed that Stefano Coletti would miss the final GP2 Series event of the 2011 season, at Monza over the 9/10/11 September.

His team, Trident Racing, have confirmed that fellow Monaco based driver Stephane Richelmi has joined the team for the Monza finale. Monza will mark the twenty-one year old driver’s GP2 debut.

Richelmi has spent the 2011 campaign racing in the Formula Renault 3.5 Series for International Draco Racing, and he currently sits nineteenth overall on six points.

Trident Racing will profit by being able to run one of the brightest prospects in Europe currently in the GP2 Series, alongside regular driver Rodolfo Gonzalez.

Speaking about the announcement that he will make his GP2 debut with Trident at Monza, Richelmi said: “I’m taking this as a good chance to start my GP2 Series experience. I don’t expect an easy weekend because I’ll be on a new car for me and I didn’t turn a single lap on it. I’ll be at Monza with no stress or strain, and I’ll try to do the best I possibly can. I hope to be helped by my experience at the racetrack, which is the last low-downforce one left. In this kind of configuration, the car should not be really different than the one I drove on the same circuit in the World Series, but it’ll be the clock to confirm that. The chance given me by Trident Racing is great to put myself at test, and after this weekend I’ll gather some valuable feedback I’ll be able to take advantage of while planning my 2012 program”

The GP2 Season finale gets underway with practice at 11.55 on Friday, with qualifying taking place at 15.40. The first race of the Monza weekend and the penultimate race of the season takes place Saturday afternoon while the Sprint race, the final race of the year will be run Sunday morning.