For immediate release August 11, 2000

 

Eurobet Arrows Formula 3000 driver Mark Webber continues to hold third place in this year's FIA International Formula 3000 Championship despite failing to finish in the points in the penultimate round of the series at the Hungaroring, Budapest today, August 11. On a track not renowned for overtaking, the 23-year old Australian however, drove a strong race to finish ninth but was clearly left ruing what might have been had he not suffered a severe tyre problem in qualifying the day before, which saw him slip from second fastest to 11th.

Webber made a flying start to the 52-lap race and had picked off three places by the first corner. However, although noticeably quicker than seventh placeman, Bas Leinders, Webber was unable to do anything about the Belgian despite a few exploratory looks. Webber kept Leinders under pressure until 10 laps from the finish, when Webber ran wide onto the dirty part of the track as he tried to close down on Leinders, allowing Darren Manning to slip through to take eighth spot.

Said Webber, "I lost a bit of downforce through the quick section as I was following Leinders and got the left hand side of the car on the marbles and then the whole car. Fortunately, I was able to get it back on line but I lost eighth place to Darren. The car was really good today and I was very happy with my lap times but what really stuffed it for us this weekend was qualifying, which is a shame because I know I'm quick around here."

Webber's Eurobet Arrows team-mate, Christijan Albers, was forced out of the race on lap 22 when a rear suspension component broke. The Dutch youngster had had an eventful start to the race, making up several places off the start only to arrive at the first corner to find cars going in all directions!

"As always, some drivers want to win the race at the first corner and so I decided to back off and let it settle down. Andre Coute was one of those who gone off and he rejoined right in front of me. I was able to put pressure on both him and Jeffrey van Hooydonk and managed to press them into a mistake to gain a couple of places back. I was then catching Tomas Scheckter when I came into the chicane and had the suspension breakage. We're not sure what caused the problem but it's definitely not the team's fault, more likely a material fault."

Team boss, Paul Stoddart, commented, "In what was a very ordinary race, we saw a rare and uncharacteristic failure on the rear suspension of Christijan's car, while Mark, regrettably, was unable to finish in the points which would have secured him third place in the driver's championship. However, today's result hasn't damaged either Mark's or the team's effort to achieve third place in the championship and we hope to be able to secure both places in the final round at Spa in  two weeks time"