MATT MAKES THE PODIUM AT SILVERSTONE!

Matt Parry’s run of points in the 2015 GP3 Series continued and he claimed his GP3 series podium at Silverstone in only his fifth outing with the Koiranen GP team. After coming close to opening his points account on debut in Barcelona, Parry racked up a seventh-place finish last time out in Austria, but arrived at Silverstone confident that both he and the team knew how to approach the former airfield circuit. Confident that he could quickly home in on the best set-up, Parry produced the fourth-fastest time, setting himself up for a strong run in Saturday’s early morning qualifying session. Unfortunately, the combination of overnight rain and other classes sharing the circuit over the weekend meant that the track characteristics changed completely by time the GP3 boys were back in action but, despite a belated start to his session, Parry was soon back in the groove, posting successive times good enough for second place before eventually having to settle for fourth on the grid.

“It was good to be fourth fastest in practice, but I was still nine-tenths off the best time,” Parry commented, “It’s so easy to lose tenths here and there around a long lap like Silverstone, so we went through the data to see where I was missing out and, after scrubbing in a set of tyres early in qualifying, I put in a series of laps good enough to keep myself in the top four, but with a much reduced two-tenths margin to the pole time.”

With Pirelli providing its hardest tyre for the weekend, making the rubber last in the 40-minute Saturday evening race would not be as big a problem as in earlier rounds, and Parry put himself straight into a position to challenge for the podium by passing fellow second row starter Alex Palou as the lights went out. As the top three began to break away from the group behind, Parry began to put pressure on second-placed Emil Bernstorff but, having been denied a chance to pass, opted to concentrate on preserving his tyre through the middle of the race. Comfortably clear of the chasing pack, the Sport Wales ambassador was able to watch with interest as the top two battle over first place before joining them on the podium.

“I made a good start and was straight into third place as Palou was slow away,” Parry confirmed, “I tried to push Bernstorff into a mistake early on before stabilising my pace midway through the race to ensure there would be no problems with the tyres in the closing stages. I then watched with interest as the top two came close to running into each other – which would have been the perfect finish – but I was delighted with third place, especially after a tough couple of rounds in Spain and Austria.”
 (Photo-Matt shows his Welsh roots by drinking- not spraying!)
Third in race one translates to sixth on the grid for race two and, again, an aggressive Parry was able to make up places early on. Passing race one winner Marvin Kirchhofer, championship leader Luca Ghiotto and Bernstorff in the space of a couple of laps promoted the 21-year old into fifth place, where he once again found himself running in tandem with Koiranen team-mate Eriksson.

“I thought I had made a good start, but it seems others made even better ones,” Parry smiled, “Despite dropping back briefly, however, I was still able to pass cars comfortably, and I was able to retake Luca Ghiotto at Luffield before going to the inside of Kirchhofer at the Loop next time around. Bernstoff made it easier for me by running off the road while trying to pass my team-mate, so I was quickly up to fifth. Jimmy was tougher to pass, but I know that I had the pace to challenge for another podium had I been able to get by him. I took a couple of looks into Copse, but it’s hard to pass there and I couldn’t try anything too risky. Nevertheless, fifth place meant more solid points and a move up the championship table. I said after Austria that I just needed a clean weekend to show what I could do, so it has been very positive – and very satisfying.”

Meanwhile Seb Morris was finding it hard at home although he seemed to have the pace but found the points scoring places out of reach, with a best result of 12th position in round six on Sunday morning.

“We made a massive step forward with our pace and my best lap in qualifying would have put us P6 on the grid for the first race, but I was penalised for marginally running over the white line – a lot of drivers were – so we ended up further down the grid than we should have been. We were on the back-foot from there in the races!

Further White-line infringements in race 1 dropped him out of the points to 15^th place!  

“If things had worked out, we could have been top six in the first race and then with a good reverse grid start for race two but I’m not too disappointed at all. The main thing is we’ve found a lot of pace, I had more speed than my team-mates and my confidence is building all of the time.” Sebs fastest lap of the race, a time of 1m51.011 seconds, was just 0.3 seconds shy of podium pace.

With a bigger challenge facing him in round six on Sunday morning from 15th on the grid, Seb made a good start to hold position initially into Abbey and he smartly gained two places into the complex before then climbing into 11th to cap a sensational opening lap.

Determined to get 11th back, Seb pressured hard and on lap 10 he set his best lap of the race of 1m50.340 seconds to confirm his intent. Ultimately, though, the MSA Team UK and FIA Institute Young Driver Excellence Academy racer had to settle for a top 12 finish at the flag on lap 15.

While the GP3 contests didn’t deliver the results which Seb’s pace warranted, off track this weekend he did enjoy success in the F1 GAMEZONE simulator competition by emerging victorious on Friday, 3rd July – notably lapping faster than FIA Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton.

“Being involved in the F1 GAMEZONE is a lot of fun and to be quicker than Lewis was definitely a good start to our Silverstone weekend – even if it was on a sim!”, said Seb, “It’s been great being back at Silvestone and the GAMEZONE gave us a great opportunity to meet some amazing fans.”

Parry followed up with a 3^rd place in Race 1 at Silverstone and 5^th place in race 2, although neither Jann or Seb managed to score any points. Currently Jann is 7^th in the points standings with 32 points, Matt is now 9th with 23 pts and Morris is 13^th with 6 points. The series is led by Luca Ghiotto from Italy with 82 points.

Round four of the 2015 GP3 Series season takes place at the Hungaroring in Budapest over the weekend of 24-26 July, but there will be several chances to relive Parry’s Silverstone performance, with his podium run in race one being re-run on Sky Sports F1 on Tuesday 7 July at 7.30pm and Sunday 11 July at 9.00am. Race two re-airs on Wednesday 8 July at 5.00pm and Sunday 11th July at 10.00am.