FIA F3000 Championship Round Three - Barcelona 

Barcelona was the venue for Round Three of the FIA F3000 Championship last Saturday with Tomas Enge and the Arden Team eager to reduce the 15 point deficit in the Drivers Championship. 

The abrasive nature of the Catalunya circuit, as in previous years, dictated that the quick times in qualifying would be set during the first 5 minutes when Formula 1 rubber was still fresh on the circuit. 

Tomas Enge used his experience to good effect setting pole on his first flying lap before making a slight mistake on his second which allowed Sebastien Bourdais to better his time by a mere 0.08 seconds. Tomas made a valiant effort in the dying minutes of the slower second session to better the time of the Super Nova driver and came within a couple of 10ths of a second and in doing so, recorded the fastest time of the second session.  

Bjorn Wirdheim, on his Barcelona debut, never felt completely comfortable with the balance of the car and lined up in 7^th position after the first session but later dropped to 12^th heading the rookies. 

Barcelona is a notoriously difficult circuit to overtake and the start would prove critical.  Tomas made an equal start to Bourdais but had to concede the first corner to the Frenchman with Italian Pantano tucking in behind him. 

Bjorn drove an aggressive first lap and completed the first tour of the 32 lap race in 9^th position.  On the second lap Tomas missed 4^th gear allowing Pantano to easily sweep past and rapidly close on Bourdais.  Tomas initially dropped back during the first 5 laps and then closed in on the leading duo.  Pantano was now applying unrelenting pressure on Bourdais with the Frenchman becoming increasingly ragged with Tomas ready to capitalise on any mistakes made.  With 5 laps to go less than 1 second covered the first three until Tomas ran wide at turn 6 allowing the first two a small amount of breathing space.  Pantano's pressure on the last lap finally paid off when Bourdais outbraked himself and ran wide into the gravel at turn 6.  He then rejoined behind Tomas who closed rapidly up to Pantano with the Arden driver finishing less than 1 second behind the Italian at the chequered flag. 

Bjorn spent much of his race fending off the attentions of Petrobras Junior driver Antonio Pizzonia.  He moved into 8^th position on lap 28, just behind the Championship Leader Rodrigo Sperafico, after David Saelens made a mistake in front of him. 

Tomas's second place closes the gap on the Championship Leader with the Arden driver now 9 points behind in 5^th position and Bjorn now in 8^th. 

Tomas Enge commented "We knew coming here that qualifying was likely to be over after the first run.  I pushed really hard on my first set of tyres but had quite a big moment exiting the last turn which caused me to lose 3/10ths down the straight on my second and quickest lap. 

I made a reasonable start but Sebastien managed to cover the inside line into the first corner.  I then missed 4^th gear on my second lap which enabled Pantano to pass me easily.  Once everything settled down, I found it reasonably easy to close in on Bourdais and Pantano.  I could see Pantano was pushing extremely hard and wanted to be close enough to pounce on any mistakes however the closer I got the more understeer I had in the car.  I made a small mistake near the end of the race which allowed Pantano enough breathing space after Bourdais' "off" to win the race."  

Bjorn Wirdheim commented "Qualifying was pretty difficult for me.  I did not manage to extract the most out of the tyres in the first three laps when the grip was in the circuit and then never really managed to find a balance on my last two sets of tyres.  I made a reasonable start and managed to pass a few cars into the first few corners and then found myself under pressure from Pizzonia for most of the race but had him reasonably covered.  As soon as I got close to the car in front, especially in the high-speed corners, I experienced more and more understeer.  My times in the race were pretty good and qualifying obviously dictated where I finished today". 

Christian Horner commented "We came here with the objective of reducing the points deficit to the Championship leader which we achieved. Tomas seemed to have pretty good pace when he was running in clear air and it was obviously a little fortuitous to finish second after Bourdais' mistake.  Bjorn acquitted himself well on his debut race at Barcelona and I think he will have learnt some valuable lessons from this weekend.  Experience here is obviously worth quite a lot."           

Drivers' Championship

Teams' Championship Points