Brands Hatch II: Robbie Kerr race notes

Kerr dominates at Brands.

Alan Docking Racing star Robbie Kerr utterly dominated the eighth round of the British Formula 3 Championship at Brands Hatch to clock up the fastest testing time, two pole positions, two wins and two fastest laps, taking his tally to an impressive 6 on the road wins so far this year.

Kerr and his Alan Docking Racing Dallara-Mugen Honda have vaulted back into second place in the championship, 40 points behind series leader James Courtney. But, if Kerr wins his still unscheduled appeal against exclusion from a race 'win' at Silverstone last month, he will close the gap to a mere 18 points.

With just a 42-second lap and virtually the whole field covered by just one second, Kerr did a good job to eke out a 0.180-second gap over second fastest Michael Keohane in first qualifying to take pole position. Keohane trimmed the gap later on, but Kerr again took pole for the second race by 0.095 seconds. The pole positions were Kerr's first in the F3 A-class.

"The car is flowing really well," he said. "I even made a mistake at Graham Hill Bend on my best lap in the second session, but I've got to be pleased. The team have done an excellent job this weekend and it shows."

Kerr got a good start to the first race to lead Keohane into Paddock Hill Bend. He soon pulled out a one-second gap on the Irishman and then gradually extended it to take an accomplished win.

"The car was so good. I was just doing lap after lap after lap within a tenth of a second of each other. I made a couple of mistakes but nothing major and otherwise I just kept it going. In fact, it was so easy I was really bored!"

Race two was even more clear cut. Keohane damaged his front wing in a first-lap clash with Fabio Carbone, and while he held up the field Kerr sprinted clear to merely emphasise his superiority.

Robbie finally crossed the line 8.4 seconds clear of Courtney, who had passed Keohane (who later spun off) for second.

"It's been a brilliant weekend and we've just got to keep repeating it. It was nice to have a cushion and to be able to ease off. I'm going to take the whole team down the pub now - it might be an expensive round!"

Robbie now moves on to next weeks British Grand Prix, taking part in the non championship International F3 invitational race, having emphasised his claim to be part of Formula One for 2003.

Summary:

Race 1:
1st Robbie Kerr (Britain); 2nd Michael Keohane (Ireland); 3rd Rob Austin (Britain); 4th Alan van der Merwe (South Africa); 5th Fabio Carbone (Brazil); 6th Bruce Jouanny (France); 7th James Courtney (Australia); 8th James Andanson (France); 9th Shinya Hosokawa (Japan); 10th Matt Gilmore (Northern Ireland).

Race 2:
1st Kerr; 2nd Courtney; 3rd Jouanny; 4th van der Merwe; 5th Heikki Kovalainen (Finland); 6th *Adam Carroll (Northern Ireland); 7th Andanson; 8th Austin; 9th Mark Taylor (Britain); 10th Hosokawa.

* = Scholarship Class driver; ineligible for points.

Points:
1st Courtney 192; 2nd Kerr 152; 3rd Jouanny 142; 4th Keohane 136; 5th Taylor 105; 6th Austin 77; 7th Kovalainen 76; 8th van der Merwe 75; 9th Carbone 63; 10th Richard Antinucci (USA) 52.

-rkr-