Hi everyone,
Well, my season is now underway. It had been a long wait since my last race at Monza in September 2009!
It is fantastic that my sponsors believed in me over the winter to let me continue my career and especially with Carlin in British F3 that is very good.
I did a few days testing in the F3 car before Christmas although it was pretty tough because most of them were wet so only really at the first official tests earlier this year did I get to learn about the car in the dry conditions. I was struggling for pace initially in the dry tests but I knew it would come but experience was certainly an obstacle. My team mates were pretty fast initially and coming from FRenault compared to me in FBMW they were just used to a car with more aero and of course the circuits! I was able to really learn from their data and with my engineer Brice I was able to make great progress at every test.
At my final test at Silverstone before the first race at Oulton Park I gained a lot of confidence and certainly made a lot of progress with both myself and the car. I was never outside of the top 3 in all of the sessions which certainly was encouraging but still it was just a test and I still didn’t really know where I really was on pace.
I arrived at Oulton Park pretty relaxed and calm for my first race weekend in British F3. The whole paddock seemed to have a really relaxed atmosphere which I really liked compared to the very confined and busy paddock of the F1 support paddock which I have been used to!
We had no free practice so we just had to go straight into qualifying on Saturday morning which certainly was a new and hard challenge for me! The circuit had been wet although it was drying so I chose to start on slick tyres immediately in qualifying as did most of the grid. The first few laps were very slippery indeed but as the temperature built up in my tyres and I began to take risks I realised I had great pace and after 10 minutes of the 25 minute session gone I was on pole. I managed to get a few clear laps and certainly I was in the fight for pole position. There was a yellow flag in the second sector with around 15 minutes to go so I decided to pit for another set of new tyres whilst I wasn’t able to set a faster time. In hindsight maybe I should have just kept the same set of tyres on my car because the circuit was drying very quickly and I had a really good balance. Still, I pushed hard on my second set and once my tyres were up to temperature I was able to fight for pole in the final minutes. I had to settle for 4th eventually but this was still a great result for my first qualifying in British F3. I had qualified 3rd and 4th for races 1 and 3.
My first race was on Saturday afternoon. I had a pretty bad start off the line with too much wheelspin but still I held 5th position from the first to the last lap and I was very happy to achieve that. In my first ever British F3 race to finish 5th was a good result.
The second race was not until Monday morning because of course we did not race on Easter Sunday. I was starting 3rd after the top 7 were reversed on the grid. It was similar conditions to qualifying actually so once again I was very happy to start on slick tyres. The grid was still very slippery though and I had never made a start in these conditions so I just picked my revs and thankfully got a much better start than race 1! I held my position for the first lap and I immediately realised I was fast enough to win. I took advantage of Dias and Nakajima fighting with each other to move into second and once I was behind Nakajima I knew if I could pressure him on to the damp parts of the circuit then I would have a chance to overtake. This opportunity came on the third lap at the first corner and once I was in the lead I just kept my head down and pushed for a gap. I help the lead to the flag and won my first British F3 race in only my second race and first ever weekend! That was pretty special.
The third race was on Monday afternoon and was 40 minutes long. This was the longest race I have ever competed in so it was pretty tough! I didn’t find it hard physically but it was a new challenge for me to think about saving my tyres and ensuring that I always had a balance I was confident with. I started 4th and had a pretty good start although I had to swerve hard to miss Huertas who had stalled on the grid. This opened a gap from me to the top 2 and after the first lap and a small mistake from me the gap was around 4 seconds to the leaders! I realised pretty soon that my race was for 3rd and that I needed to think about that. I managed consistent laps and stayed focussed to finish 3rd and get another podium.
So, what a great first weekend. 5th, 1st, 3rd. Sunoco Driver of the Weekend and 3rd in the Championship. I was very happy. I have to pay a lot of credit to the great start to my season to my team Carlin who have made the transition from FBMW to F3 very manageable for me. They have given me the confidence I needed all the way so I am very thankful to them. There are still 27 races to go and there are a lot of areas I am not happy with and need to improve with so I will maintain my focus and structure to continue achieving good weekends and of course more race wins.
It was very hard to secure the funding for this season because of the way the economies are around the world at the moment but hopefully this great first weekend has gone some way to showing my sponsors they were right to believe in me.
I have one test at Silverstone before I go back to Silverstone on 1/2 May for my second race weekend of the season. I will approach it with the same mentality with which I approached Oulton Park.
I will spend the downtime back at home training hard and improving more, as for sure that is what the competition will be doing.
It’s fantastic to be back racing again and I am really looking forward to an exciting season!!
Take care.
Thanks,
Rupert 
It’s been a while since I last blogged on Motors TV.com and since then we’ve had a pretty good run in British F3.
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