With two FIA F3 wins already to his name this season, including the Race 1 victory at Silverstone last weekend, Liam Lawson has to be one of the favourites for topping the podium again. The question is rather who out of the other three Red Bull Juniors can join the 18-year-old New Zealander in the celebrations.
Prime candidate is Hitech teammate Dennis Hauger and while the 17-year-old Norwegian was infuriated to be out of the points last weekend he was on the podium in Hungary and can do it again. If they can shake off the bad luck and frustrations of the early season, Jack Doohan and Igor Fraga will be with them.
Lawson still working
FIA F3 Championship position: 5th – 54 points – after 8 races
“It
was a great win last Saturday and we’d like to be able to repeat the
Quali and Race 1 this weekend. There are still things to work on. We
didn’t have the speed of some of the cars behind us in Race 1 so I hope
we can improve there.”
“We need to make our car better in traffic, that is something we saw in
Race 2 last weekend,” stated the Kiwi, never one to settle for a less
than complete success.
Hauger knows what is needed
FIA F3 Championship position: 14th – 14 points – after 8 races
“As a team I think we were quite strong in Qualifying,” the Norwegian pointed out. “I think I just need to work on a few things for myself, in my driving but also a bit of work on the balance of the car for me.”
“Then for the race I think there are a few things we can work on. Also there with the balance there was quite a difference between Race 1 and Race 2, the weather changed so it was different for everyone but I think it was probably more than that so we have things to do. I just have to keep my head up and keep working.”
Doohan working on a big change
FIA F3 Championship position: 27th – 0 points – after 8 races
“We went out on a limb with the race set-up we used last weekend,” stated the 17-year-old Australian HWA driver. “That was an improvement so we have got to try and make a Quali set-up from that. Jack (Hughes) has developed the car around him but that isn’t working for me so we have to go our own way. We can’t go back to where we were.”
“Last Sunday I was so annoyed because I knew that if we had started anywhere close to the front, even the top 7, we would not have been mixed up with the mess. We could have had a good result because the front guys only did those times towards the end, between the two safety cars.”
“I don’t want just to be saying every weekend, ‘we’ve got it’, I want to do it!”
Fraga needs a clear run
FIA F3 Championship position: 24th – 0 points – after 8 races
“We have seen that the car can be good,” pointed out the 21-year-old Brazilian. “We have had pace. We need to be clear of technical problems and then we can show what we can do. We can still certainly improve the car, I can also improve but it is difficult to do those things when we have technical problems and lose track time.”
“Last weekend we were also very much effected by track changes. In Free Practice we had the lap time but then in Qualifying we didn’t and it was the same for all three cars,” explained the Charouz team member. “We will work on that this weekend.”
Silverstone weekend schedule – all times BST (CEST -1)
Friday 7th August
09:35 – Practice (45 minutes)
14:05 – Qualifying (30 minutes)
Saturday 8thAugust
09:25 – Race 1 (20 laps)
Sunday 9thAugust
08:45 – Race 2 (20 laps)
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