Four races, all to play for as the FIA F3 season charges towards its close. Liam Lawson is 41 points off the lead, the 18-year-old New Zealander stands 4th in the title chase. There are enough points still on offer for the Red Bull Junior to be champion but the Hitech driver is focusing on race results at Monza.
Dennis Hauger, Jack Doohan and Igor Fraga have their attention similarly fixed as they head for the home of Italian motor racing.
Lawson going for the win
“I like the track, obviously, like Spa it’s a very historic track so I’m excited. It’s going to be a fascinating weekend for sure. For Quali, like last year, it is going to be interesting to see what people do with the tow and that sort of thing. Obviously there are two ways to go, you either go for the tow to get the best lap possible or you play it safe and drive by yourself. I am curious to see how it plays out.”
“As
for the races, it will be the first time I have run on the soft this
year so that will make things slightly different as well. The main focus
for us is to try and clean up a little bit on some of the mistakes we
have been making, issues that have been costing us a lot of points. We
need to make up some points this weekend.”
“We need points but we are certainly not fixated on the total. The
championship is not out of the door but it is clear that at this stage
we would need a bit of luck so there is no point in worrying about that.
We’ve just got to go out and concentrate on winning races, then we’ll
see where we end up.”
Hauger knows it will be different
“I won there last year in F4,” said the 17-year-old Norwegian who actually scored a hat-trick to top off his Italian Championship winning season. “But I am sure it will be quite different in an F3 car. It will be interesting and looking at Quali last year where it was quite messy with everyone trying to get the slipstream it can be quit difficult. I think it is going to be important to get a lap in early and then see what you can do about track position for another push later, we’ll see.”
Doohan looking for a clean weekend
Last
year Jack Doohan was very much on the pace in Euroformula at Monza. The
17-year-old Australian is keen to get back and get the results that his
very strong pace this year in F3 has promised. “We came away from Spa
again without the results that the pace deserved. That has been the
story of the year really, incidents, punctures, things going wrong when
we were on the pace to get really good results.”
“We just need a clear run to do what we know we can,” concluded the HWA driver.
Fraga looking for balance
“Monza, it’s let’s say a bit of a different track,” explained the 21-year-old Brazilian. “There are not many medium speed corners, it is more about low speed and high speed. We will try to find the right balance for both, typically this year we have not been so strong on the low speed… so we’ll see,” added the Charouz driver with a smile.
Monza weekend schedule – all times CEST
Friday 4th September
09:35 – Practice (45 minutes)
14:05 – Qualifying (30 minutes)
Saturday 5th September
10:25 – Race 1 (22 Laps or 40 Mins) -8:25pm Sat NZ time
Sunday 6th September
09:45 – Race 2 (22 Laps or 40 Mins) – 7:45pm Sun NZ time
Comments