Formula European Masters
Jonathan Summerton Le Mans race notes
Summerton Podiums in Le Mans Jonathan Summerton was ecstatic to receive a 2nd place at the world renowned Le Mans track in France on Saturday's F3 Euro Series Feature Race. Jonathan thanked Team Mucke for a great car. "The car was really good and ...
Edited: Oct 16, 2006, 2:06 AM
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Summerton Podiums in Le Mans
Jonathan Summerton was ecstatic to receive a 2nd place at the world renowned Le Mans track in France on Saturday's F3 Euro Series Feature Race. Jonathan thanked Team Mucke for a great car. "The car was really good and I really enjoyed this challenging track."
Starting the Le Mans weekend at this famous and legendary track with a Thursday test day in the F3 Euro series was treated to fine weather. As the cars took the track and the drivers learnt the corners, times fell. Jonathan Summerton, coming straight from driving the team USA A1GP 520 horsepower car, got straight down to business and once again turned some of the fastest sectors. At the end of the first ninety minute session he was comfortable with 5th fastest time.
In the afternoon session, with some fine tuning by the engineers, Jonathan was in 4th place until the closing minutes when several cars opted to put new tires on and subsequently reduce their times. At the checkered Jonathan was the fastest driver on old tires with 12 cars within 1 second.
Asked about the test Jonathan said, "The change to the F3 from the A1GP was difficult but the team gave me a great car and hopefully we learnt what we need to go out tomorrow and qualify at the top ".
Qualifying
Times kept on falling with Jonathan struggling to put a clear lap in. As the session was winding up he managed to get a clear lap and posted a great 5th fastest time. However, due to another driver being given a 5 spot time penalty, Jonathan will start the feature race from the 4th slot.
Feature Race
Jonathan had a great start. Going into turn one he was in the lead when several cars came together coming down the inside of him forcing him wide, allowing Paul di Resta to go through on the inside and Jonathan had to go to the outside into 2nd place. Jonathan commented, " The race start was very interesting. I had a brilliant start and then the accident happened forcing me into 2nd. I could hold Paul but as soon as I went nearer I lost the air and down force causing understeer. We were both leaving 3rd place so I decided to chase him down from 2.4 seconds to 1 second but to get closer caused many problems with the car's aerodynamics".
Sprint Race
Using the reverse grid Jonathan started from 7th quickly moving up the field to 4th place in the first lap. Again, like Saturday, he gained on third place Hirate, but as soon as he got near lost the downforce causing an understeer not allowing Jonathan to close up more than 4 tenths of a second. Afterwards Jonathan said, "Of course I would have loved to get another podium; however, the understeer caused problems whenever I went nearer to Hirate and the points are very important in the championship". Peter Mucke commented" Jonathan raced perfect all weekend. He used his head and never made a mistake even under pressure".
The final race weekend is in 2 weeks at Hockenheim
-credit: www.Formulajon.com
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