Croft: Hitech Racing Saturday notes

RED FLAGS HAMPER HITECH'S CROFT CHALLENGE

Reigning British Formula 3 champions Hitech Racing were left frustrated by red flags in qualifying for the third and fourth rounds at Croft on Saturday. The Buckingham-based team with drivers Walter Grubmuller and Max Chilton were trying a different set-up on their Dallara F308 Mercedes HWAs in the opening 30minute session.

But following a session which saw 19 year-old Grubmuller also struggle with heavy traffic leaving him unable to get a clear run, the team reverted back to the settings which saw them sixth quickest overall earlier in the month.

Seventeen year-old Chilton, who took second place in the opening rounds at Oulton Park, missed the two official test days earlier this month and had just two 50-minute sessions at the North Yorkshire track on Friday prior to qualifying.

After making changes to his car for the second session, things were looking good for Chilton to move up the order but an incident ten minutes from the finish brought out the red flag. With the drivers in the pits and getting ready to rejoin the chequered flag was shown signalling the end of the session.

David Hayle: We've had a very frustrating day caused by a variety of problems. For Walter we tried some aerodynamic parts on the car for the first session which sadly didn't quite work for him but he was also caught in traffic. We reverted back to the original settings for the second session and were hopeful of improving until the session was stopped seven minutes early preventing us from doing so.

"Max unfortunately missed the official two-day test so the track is unknown to him in the new car. In the second session, he'd made some great improvements over the course of the session but on new tyres the session was red-flagged and then stopped prematurely and he was unable to rejoin the track."

The two races take place tomorrow at 12:30 and 15:40.

-credit: hitechracing.net