Author Topic: Foresti scores dominant maiden win  (Read 5530 times)

Offline fasteddy

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Foresti scores dominant maiden win
« on: May 13, 2011, 05:33:58 PM »
By Ben Anderson    Saturday, April 23rd 2011, 15:12 GMT

Lucas Foresti wins at Oulton ParkLucas Foresti claimed his maiden British Formula 3 win with a commanding performance in the first race at Oulton Park this afternoon.

The Brazilian Fortec driver converted the first pole position of his British F3 career into an immediate lead with a ballistic start, while fellow front row starter Felipe Nasr (Carlin) made a poor getaway and fell behind T-Sport's Menasheh Idafar, who nipped up the inside through Old Hall.

Foresti finished the first lap with a 2.2-second lead and drew away relentlessly from his rivals - lowering Nick Tandy's 2009 lap record by a tenth of a second and extending his advantage over the chasers on every one of the race's 21 laps.

Idafar chased Foresti gamely in the early laps, but fell off at Old Hall at the start of lap eight, which promoted Nasr to second. The championship leader had no answer to the pace of fellow Brazilian Foresti, who ran out a dominant winner by a mammoth 18.3s.

"I have to thank everybody from the team and Mercedes that put everything together for the great win," said Foresti. "At Monza we showed the speed, but here we had some speed with luck and put everything together - it was great."

A defeated Nasr was not too disappointed to finish second and extend his points lead over team-mate Jazeman Jaafar.

"I'm not frustrated," said Nasr. "I think it was quite a fair race. He [Foresti] got in the lead, had clean air in front, so he could manage very good laps. I just started saving my tyres - second is quite a good result and good for the championship."

Jaafar made a good start and pushed hard "from the start to the end" to make it three podiums in four races so far this season.

Practice pacesetter Carlos Huertas (Carlin) jumped Double R's Scott Pye on the first lap and then inherited fourth when Idafar fell off. He was chased home by Pietro Fantin (Hitech) and Fortec's Harry Tincknell.

Hitech's Riki Christodoulou climbed from 10th on the grid to finish seventh, with Carlin's Kevin Magnussen recovering from a qualifying crash to finish eighth from a row seven start.

Reigning British Formula Ford champion Pye recovered from a poor start to score his first points of the season with ninth, while Carlin's Rupert Svendsen-Cook also fell back in the early running before claiming the final point for 10th.

Results - 21 laps:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car                     Time/Gap
 1.  Lucas Foresti         Fortec Dallara-Merc        31m19.106s
 2.  Felipe Nasr           Carlin Dallara-VW           + 18.362s
 3.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin Dallara-VW           + 20.043s
 4.  Carlos Huertas        Carlin Dallara-VW           + 24.677s
 5.  Pietro Fantin         Hitech Dallara-VW           + 25.839s
 6.  Harry Tincknell       Fortec Dallara-Merc         + 27.110s
 7.  Riki Christodoulou    Hitech Dallara-VW           + 29.882s
 8.  Kevin Magnussen       Carlin Dallara-VW           + 30.644s
 9.  Scott Pye             Double R Dallara-Merc       + 31.168s
10.  Rupert Svendsen-Cook  Carlin Dallara-VW           + 34.275s
11.  Jack Harvey           Carlin Dallara-VW           + 39.683s
12.  Hywel Lloyd           Sino Vision Dallara-Merc    + 43.085s
13.  Yann Cunha            T-Sport Dallara-VW          + 43.679s
14.  William Buller        Fortec Dallara-Merc         + 45.406s
15.  Fahmi Ilyas           Fortec Dallara-Merc         + 46.872s
16.  Adderly Fong          Sino Vision Dallara-Merc    + 51.875s
17.  Bart Hylkema          T-Sport Dallara-Mugen     + 1m11.679s
18.  Kotaru Sakurai        Hitech Dallara-Mugen          + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Pipo Derani           Double R Dallara-Merc          8 laps
     Menasheh Idafar       T-Sport Dallara-VW             7 laps