Intalia: Matt Lee Hockenheim summary

Lee Finishes Fourth at Hockenheim In Italian Formula 3 Race SYOSSET, N.Y., June 23 - Americans have someone to cheer for and something to cheer about this year on the tough Italian Formula 3 circuit, a series which has produced several Formula 1 ...

Edited: Jun 24, 2010, 10:51 PM

Copy link

Share on Facebook

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Lee Finishes Fourth at Hockenheim In Italian Formula 3 Race

SYOSSET, N.Y., June 23 - Americans have someone to cheer for and something to cheer about this year on the tough Italian Formula 3 circuit, a series which has produced several Formula 1 drivers.

The American they can cheer for in that series is 20-year-old Matt Lee of Syosset, N.Y.

What they have to cheer about is that Lee finished a solid fourth in a 28-car field in the series' recent race on the famous Hockenheim circuit in Germany. The accomplishment made many Europeans sit up and take notice of Lee, who Americans know from Formula BMW USA, Firestone Indy Lights and Formula Atlantic events.

Lee qualified fifth in the rain for the race in which he would later finish fourth. The race itself was held in dry conditions.

"They do standing starts and my start wasn't bad; I think I lost just one position," Lee recalled. "Then two guys crashed in Turn 3 to bring out a yellow. On the restart I was able to break away from the people behind me, and then I just stayed there.

"I didn't have the car to catch the three drivers ahead of me and the guy behind me wasn't catching me, so I just tried to be consistent and bring it home," Lee said.

"It was fun; the track was really nice. I liked Turn 6 a lot. It's a really fast right-hander," he added.

"I'm also pleased that we did so well on a track that I'd never seen before," he noted.

Lee has tested at all the other tracks he'll face this year on the circuit, including the one he'll visit next, Imola. He races there over the Fourth of July weekend.

The season opener was in Misano, Italy. Following Imola, subsequent races will be held in Mugello, Varano, Vallelunga and Monza. The series started in April and concludes in October.

"The tracks are in the middle of the towns in Italy, so we should get even more spectators there than we did at Hockenheim," Lee said. "I'm enjoying the series. I've been driving a Mygale. They're nice for a car that only has 220 horsepower. They go 140 on the straights everywhere."

Lee has been driving an orange and black car, No. 52, fielded by Alan Racing.

"The actual racing is a little different, because they have a little more defensive driving tactics over there than what is allowed in America," Lee noted. "The language differences haven't been a problem because at the track everyone speaks English. The test in France was tough though, because no one spoke English there. But there are a lot of racing fans in Italy. They have a lot of national pride, but they're treating me well. The races are televised in Italy, and they're on YouTube too."

-source: mattleemotorsports.com

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article DE: Series newsletter 2010-06-17

Next article EU Open: Series Spa race 1 report

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Ferrari hails "emotional" Monza pole in final WEC race for 499P

WEC

WEC WEC

Monza

6 min

Ferrari hails "emotional" Monza pole in final WEC race for 499P

Toyota fears “big gap” to rivals in Monza WEC after worst qualifying of 2026

WEC

WEC WEC

Monza

27 min

Toyota fears “big gap” to rivals in Monza WEC after worst qualifying of 2026

John Hunter Nemechek gets a winning car and Haas gets a B2B opportunity

NASCAR O'Reilly

NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly

Homestead-Miami

32 min

John Hunter Nemechek gets a winning car and Haas gets a B2B opportunity

Francesco Bagnaia out of Qatar Grand Prix with fractures in right foot

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

39 min

Francesco Bagnaia out of Qatar Grand Prix with fractures in right foot

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts