Welsh trio score in Austria

Race Report Races 3 & 4 of the 2015 GP3 Series at the Red Bull Ring' Sunday, 21st June.
(N.B The Red Bull Ring aka the AI Ring aka the Österreichring was built to replace the old Zeltweg Airfeild circuit)
Seb Morris & Matt Parry both broke through to score well in their GP3 Rookie season at the Red Bull Ring in the Styrian Mountians in Austria, as both Seb & Matt delivered their best race performances of the season so far!
Seb, having languished down in 19th place on the grid after race one, put in an outstanding drive to fifth place – securing his first points of the year! After making a superb start he neatly positioned his car on the inside line for Turn One, avoiding first corner contact, and in a remarkable opening lap, he carved his way through into ninth position by the end of the lap. Following an early Safety Car period, racing resumed on lap four and the ontinued his impressive rise up the order. Taking eighth from team-mate Alex Fontana on lap four, he then grabbed seventh place on lap six. Reeling in the group ahead, Seb closed down pole position starter Ralph Boschung and on lap 12 he sealed sixth position with a great pass. Although edged back to seventh three laps from the finish, his promotion into fifth swiftly followed after the race – the result marking a real breakthrough in his first year in GP3. After taking the chequered flag in seventh position, post-race he was elevated into the top five after two rivals were excluded for technical infringements. The result means Seb ends his second weekend in GP3 in 11th position in the championship, just a single point outside the top 10! Summing up he said "We had a disappointing qualifying again and that was my fault, I was losing time in one corner which compromised me for the next sequence so, really, we should have been around the top 10 on the grid for the first race. However we found some issues with the car after race one, so changed it massively for race two and it was much better – the main thing being I could push harder on the tyre. It was a great way to finish off the weekend. I’m really happy to be honest and it’s nice to come through the order like I did in race two, picking up so many places. The aim now is to keep improving when we get to Silverstone in a couple of weeks.” (acknowledgments)

Matt Parry also overcame problems after Saturdays 40 minute race distance proved a couple of laps too long, as a repeat of earlier hydraulic problems forced him out of a hard-earned ninth place with the chequered flag in sight. The resulting 13th position in the classification then seemed to need a couple of additional laps to overcome in Sunday’s shorter 17 lap race as the Koiranen GP rookie crossed the line just over a tenth shy of eighth place. However, a swathe of post-race penalties accounted for two of the cars ahead of Parry, resulting in him being promoted to 7th after the flag.

“It was frustrating to see my first points finish in GP3 disappear so close to home,” Parry admitted, “I pushed hard on the restart as there were places to be made and I showed that I could make them by passing Fuoco – who went on to finish second – in the first couple of laps. From then on, however, it was a fight to keep position. The hydraulic problem first caused me to lose a handful of positions around mid-distance, when I was unable to change down to fourth gear for the last couple of corners and ran wide, but it seemed to have sorted itself after that and I felt confident that I could take something from the race. Unfortunately, the warning light came back on and I was stuck in fourth gear for the whole of the last lap...”With race one’s result setting the grid for race two, Matt found himself on the inside of row seven as Sunday’s action got underway, and that left him vulnerable to any incident in the middle of the pack. Whilst there was no repeat of Saturday’s start-line accident, the Welshman was forced to avoid a collision at turn one, and weaving through the spinning cars dropped him back down the field.

While a second separate incident removed three obstacles ahead of him, Parry was still running 13th at the end of the first lap, before working closely with Eriksson to move up the order. The pair were still nose-to-tail with six laps to run but, having kept his tyre wear in check, Parry launched a late assault on the points, passing both his team-mate and polesitter Ralf Boschung before pulling alongside Alex Fontana on the run to the line. Although the initial results showed that he had missed the final scoring spot by a tenth of a second, Parry had put himself into position to benefit when the stewards announced the exclusion of two cars ahead of him, eventually promoting the 21-year old to seventh place and two points.

"Having to take avoiding action at turn one negated any advantage I might have gained from the accident and that made the pursuit of points a little harder,” Parry reflected, “I hadn’t made the best of starts as rebuilding the car overnight changed the clutch bite point and gave me wheelspin off the line, but I had good pace and was careful not to ruin the tyres early on. Once I had got by Jimmy on the start-finish straight, I was able to put my foot down but Fontana proved just out of reach – another few metres and I would have been eighth!

Jan Mardenbough scored well in Race 1 but on the opening lap of race 2 his car was hit by his team-mate Antonio Fuoco who overdid the late braking and made contact with Janns car! Fuoco got airborne and landed on another car, putting both cars out! The safety car came out and Jann was able to continue, after a pit stop that dropped him well down.

(Images courtesy of GP3 Series Media Service)

Current points 2015 GP3 Championship
1^st Luca Ghiotto (Italy) 66 Points
5^th Jann Mardenborough 32 pts
11^th Seb Morris 6 pts
14^th Matt Parry 2 pts

http://www.gp3series.com

http://www.sebmorris.com @SebMorris31

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http://www.mattparryracing.co.uk/ ‏@Mattparryracing

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@Jannthaman

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Next on the schedule is the annual visit to Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit, which will take place over the weekend 4th/5th July in support of the British F1 Grand Prix. As ever, the event will be covered live in the UK on Sky Sports F1.

2015 GP3 Races

03-05 July Silverstone, Great-Britain

17-19 July TBA, Germany

24-26 July Budapest, Hungary

21-23 August Spa Belgium

04-06 September Monza, Italy

09-11 October Sochi, Russia

27-29 November Yas Marina, UAE

The race and the rules: GP3

Every car will have three sets of dry tyres and two sets of wet weather tyres available for the GP3 race weekend. Only one compound is nominated: hard for this weekend. The drivers can use the tyre allocation in any way they like. All the GP3 compounds carry yellow markings.

Drivers are allowed to carry over one tyre set from the previous round for use in free practice only.

There is one practice session, one qualifying session and two races in GP3. Qualifying takes place at 09:45 on Saturday morning, after a single free practice session on Friday at 17:50. Race One starts at 17:20 on Saturday and lasts for 22 laps, followed by Race Two at 09:25 on Sunday (lasting 17 laps). The grid for Race Two is determined by the finishing order of the first race, with the top eight positions reversed.