British racer Sean Walkinshaw almost secured a deserved podium finish on his European Formula 3 Open debut during the first round of the 2013 Winter Series at Paul Ricard in France this afternoon, Saturday, 16th February – but his hopes went awry after being wiped out on the penultimate lap.
Although disappointed to eventually finish sixth in the Copa Class at the wheel of his Dallara F308, having held third position for the bulk of the 14-lap encounter, the Chipping Norton driver did prove his pace and front-running credentials despite a weekend littered with car gremlins.
Unable to benefit from much in the way of track time during testing on Friday, 15th February, due to continually occurring mechanical issues, the 19-year-old also experienced further difficulties in the all-important qualifying session which limited him to sixth fastest in the Copa Class, 15th overall.
Knowing he had the potential to make up a lot of ground in today’s race, regardless of the lack of practice time, Sean didn’t disappoint and after a great start he moved into fourth in class on lap one and set about challenging for the Copa podium placings.
Climbing into third in class on lap two, and into the overall top 10, the Team West-Tec rookie starred with an impressive drive. While maintaining his Copa podium spot, he continued to make progress at the expense of the faster F312 class cars and was as high as seventh overall by lap four.
Although some of the drivers from the headline class began to move back up the order as the race entered its closing stages, Gloucester Rugby-backed Sean wasn’t troubled as he focused solely on keeping hold of his hard-earned Copa podium.
Then, at the final corner on the penultimate lap, the Oxfordshire racer’s hopes were ruined when he was collected by one of the F312 drivers who had misjudged the turn. Although able to recover sixth in class, Sean was justly aggrieved at missing out on a rightful podium on his Euro F3 Open debut.
“Considering the little amount of track time I had in practice and qualifying, in the race I was quick and competitive so that’s something we can take positives from”, he commented, “It was all going well, I had a good start and quickly moved into third place and seventh overall. To be taken out near the end is a bit annoying to say the least.
“The worst thing is I was going to let the F312 past on the next straight, there was no point trying to fight him but he misjudged the last corner and crashed into me. My car did start to die-off a bit, and the tyres started to go, but without the incident we’d have been on the podium for sure.”
Sean added: “Overall it’s been a pretty miserable weekend, in all five of the practice sessions and in qualifying we had mechanical problems. Six sessions, six problems, but the team worked hard to try and sort everything out so thanks to them for trying to get it all resolved. Hopefully everything will be problem-free in Jerez!”
There is now a two-week break from competitive action for the European F3 Open runners with the second event of the Winter Series scheduled to take place at Jerez in Spain on Saturday, 2nd March.