Lausitz: Carlo van Dam race one report

No chance at Lausitzring

Carlo van Dam fights familiar problems

LAUSITZ - At the German Lausitzring, Dutch racing driver Carlo van Dam is fighting the same problems that determined his pace during the opening rounds of the Formula 3 Euroseries at Hockenheim earlier this month. His Dallara-Volkswagen ran by the new Kolles & Heinz Union-team is again suffering from a lack of top speed amongst several other problems. Consequently, Carlo, the 2007 German F3-champion and last year's Japanese F3-champion, today couldn't finish higher than in 19th position. Tomorrow round four of the Euroseries is run at the Lausitzring.

"I admit that this situation ultimately challenges your motivation", Carlo says. "I like the challenge of solving problems. That's motor racing and that's how one makes progress. The problems we have, though, were clear from the very first test earlier this year and haven't been solved since. That naturally means asking quite a lot from your patience and understanding. However, I of course can not do more than making clear what I find needs to be changed and why. Whether or not it is subsequently changed, I do not control in this case. We are not talking about fine tuning or tenths of a seconds here. This is about fundamental matters. In addition, the gearbox didn't work yesterday, which kept me out of free practice. Since it rained during qualifying today, I reckon I could have fought my way into the top ten somehow, but the differential turned out to have been set up wrongly and thus the car's handling was hopeless. On the straights we are still way too slow: at the start I got up from 22nd to 15th, but then everybody came sailing past me easily. The difference in top speed is still seriously obvious. If and when we will change a few crucial things will determine if and when we will have a car with which we have a realistic chance of performing properly."

-credit: carlovandam.nl