Riki Christodoulou claimed a popular maiden victory in the Cooper Tires British Formula 3 International Series at Snetterton this afternoon, his Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes pipping championship leader Daniel Ricciardo to victory by just over a second. Christodoulou’s win brings to six the number of different race victors this season.
Riki got the job done within three laps of the start, after pole-sitter and round nine victor Renger van der Zande fluffed his getaway from the grid and let Christodoulou nose his way into second place at the first corner, just behind the Hitech car of Walter Grubmüller.
Christodoulou piled on the pressure during the first and second laps, then popped past the Austrian to claim the lead into Riches at the start of lap three. Thereafter he was home free.
Said Riki: “I knew I had to get a good start, and I managed to get ahead of Renger off the line, then two laps later I passed Walter down the start/finish line, and from there I was able to control the race.”
To further acknowledge his achievement, Christodoulou was awarded the accolade of Sunoco Driver of the Weekend.
Grubmüller further lost out when Ricciardo followed Christodoulou’s example and drove past the Austrian, following Riki home all the way to the flag to collect a solid second place for Carlin Motorsport. “If someone had told me this morning that I would take 30 points from today I wouldn’t have believed them,” said Daniel. “We still don’t have winning pace, but when you can’t win you have to try to bag good points, which is what we’ve done.”
A disappointed Grubmuller had to make do with third, just ahead of his team-mate van der Zande. The T-Sport twins, Adriano Buzaid and Wayne Boyd, were well in touch throughout the race to collect fifth and sixth; it was a spirited drive from Ulsterman Boyd and resulted in his best finish of the season to date. Max Chilton, Henry Arundel, Jay Bridger and Victor Garcia completed the top 10.
T-Sport's National Class racer Gabriel Dias made an excellent start to the race to lead the class throughout, with Daniel McKenzie second and newcomer Aaron Steele third in his Litespeed.
“The start was great,” said Gabriel. “I passed several cars off the line and then it was just a case of keeping the pace on. The car was much better than for the first race; it’s good to finish off the weekend with a win.”
Round 10 provisional result, Snetterton, 5/7/2009
29 laps / 56.61 miles
1 INT Riki Christodoulou/GBR, Fortec Dallara-Mercedes, 30m 42.827s / 110.58mph
2 INT Daniel Ricciardo/AUS, Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen, +1.152s
3 INT Walter Grubmüller/AUT, Hitech Dallara-Mercedes, +1.803s
4 INT Renger van der Zande/NED, Hitech Dallara-Mercedes, +3.095s
5 INT Adriano Buzaid/BRA, T-Sport Dallara-Volkswagen, +7.390s
6 INT Wayne Boyd/GBR, T-Sport Dallara-Volkswagen, +9.213s
7 INT Max Chilton/GBR, Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen, +9.767s
8 INT Henry Arundel/GBR, Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen, +15.916s
9 INT Jay Bridger/GBR, Litespeed Mygale-Mugen Honda, +16.263s
10 INT Victor Garcia/ESP, Fortec Dallara-Mercedes, +17.165s
11 NAT Gabriel Dias/BRA, T-Sport Dallara-Mugen Honda, +18.584s
12 INT Carlos Huertas/COL, RR Dallara-Mercedes, +20.324s
13 INT Daisuke Nakajima/JPN, RR Dallara-Mercedes, +21.040s
14 NAT Daniel McKenzie/GBR, Fortec Dallara-Mugen Honda, +21.506s
15 INT Hywel Lloyd/GBR, CF Racing Dallara-Mugen Honda, +27.152s
