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Racing Engineering Spanish F3 Jerez race notes

Victory for Racing Engineering's Ricardo Mauricio! Round three of the 2003 Spanish Formula 3 Championship took place this weekend at the Jerez circuit in the south of Spain. Racing Engineering's Ricardo Mauricio finished the first race third ...

Victory for Racing Engineering's Ricardo Mauricio!

Round three of the 2003 Spanish Formula 3 Championship took place this weekend at the Jerez circuit in the south of Spain. Racing Engineering's Ricardo Mauricio finished the first race third with his teammates Lourenco da Veiga in fifth, Pedro Barral in sixth and Dennis Furchheim in tenth position. Race two brought the first victory for Ricardo in the Spanish F3 and saw Pedro in third and Lourenco in fifth.

Race 1:

After an incident due to Garcia the race had to be restarted and saw Ricardo Mauricio going into race one from position two, Pedro from fifth, Lourenco from eighth and Dennis from ninth position. Ricardo has been able to keep his position at the start, but has been overtaken in the first corner. Being third Ricardo didn't take any risks with another upcoming race and finished race one in a safe third position.

Pedro starting fifth on the grid lost one position at the start to his teammate Lourenco. Both Lourenco and Pedro didn't face any problems throughout the race and therefore finished fifth and sixth respectively. Dennis going into the race from position nine made his way up to seventh until he has been overtaken by Hernandez and Garcia in lap nine. Dennis finished race one in ninth position.

Race 2:

The second race once again has been started at it's the second attempt. Ricardo starting from pole position has not been distracted by this and has been dominating throughout the race. Never in danger of losing his position he gained a sovereign start-finish-win, his first in the Spanish F3 Championship. Pedro Barral, starting from sixth position had a very good start that brought him into third position already in lap one. Pedro kept this position during the entire race and therefore went on the podium as third. Later Pedro was given a one minute penalty, a decision Racing Engineering's driver is appealing against. Lourenco also fascinated everyone with an amazing start that brought him four positions up into fourth. In lap 11 Aicart and Soucek overtook Lourenco, whereas Aicart had to face problems that made him finish twelfth. Lourenco finished race two fifth.

Dennis, starting from thirteenth position had a good start making up two places, but once more, an incident with Maria de Villota forced Dennis to come into the pits to have the front wing on his car changed. This put Dennis in a position that made it impossible to battle for any good position and therefore he finished thirteenth. Later on Dennis, who in all the years he has been racing never has been accused for causing accidents, has been excluded from race two because of supposedly dangerous driving.

After his victory Ricardo announced, "With Borja the race has been hard at the beginning. In quick corners I was very fast, but Borja caught me in the slow ones. Still I could keep the distance. During the last laps I had some understeer, but I think this was due to the long safety car phase, which made the track dirtier, and the high temperatures. Nevertheless I could keep my position without any problem. I am happy about the podium in the first race and even more after the win of the second race."

Lourenco after the second race stated, "In both races I had a very good start and this makes it easier for the races themselves. In the first race it was very difficult to do any better than fifth as the first four drivers have been very fast. In the second race I had another very good start and was in fourth position most of the time. Then I had a problem with the battery so I couldn't keep up with Pedro. I also made a little mistake and missed the breaking due to my foot slipping off the pedal and therefore Aicart and Soucek could pass me. But then Aicart had a problem and I finished fifth."

Team owner Alfonso de Orleans says, "What a wonderful victory for Ricardo. The whole team worked very hard and well this weekend. They deserve a real applause. There is still a lot of work to be done on the cars technically, but we are getting there. I am very happy we are again first in team championship, where we really should be and let's hope we stay there fore the rest of the year. Now we have to work to get the drivers to the top."

-www.racing-engineering.com

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