Croft: Second race summary

Dirani does grand slam in British F3 at Croft

Brazilian Danilo Dirani took a clean sweep of pole positions, race wins, fastest laps and the Driver of the meeting award after victory in round six of the Avon Tyres British Formula Three Championship at Croft in North Yorkshire this afternoon (May 2). The result also puts him into the joint lead of the championship with Nelson Piquet.

A good start by Dirani meant he lead the field into the first corner as previous race runner-up James Rossiter and Adam Carroll made contact and ended up in the gravel. The safety car was called out while the stricken cars were removed. An excellent re-start by Dirani saw him lead Ernesto Viso. However, Viso left the track at the chicane and was unable to continue.

A dominant performance by Dirani throughout the rest of the race gave him almost a four second lead over Australian Will Davison by the time he reached the chequered flag.

"To have two race wins feels wonderful," said Dirani. "I knew the most important part of today would be my starts and thankfully I had two good starts and a great one after the safety car. I have been waiting for this and it feels so good now," he added.

Nelson Piquet Jr's nightmare weekend came to a premature halt after he stopped at the chicane during the safety car period. A flat battery gave him his first non-finish of the season.

Lucas Di Grassi rounded off the podium just ahead of Clivio Piccione, Karun Chandhok and Marko Asmer.

The Scholarship Class win went to Australian Barton Mawer. Series leader and four-time winner Ryan Lewis drove a storming race to finish third from the back of the grid. Stephen Jelley was second.

"Everything just seemed to fall into place," said Mawer. "I've finally got into a rhythm and hopefully we can keep the pressure on Ryan now and win the next one too."

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