Starting from pole position at the
Silverstone Grand prix circuit was always going to be an advantage and so it proved for
Nelson Piquet Jr today in the British F3 championship's first race.
Such is the the nature of the cars when allied to the wide and open Silverstone track that it was an essentially an action-free race, the series often being a perfect branded a perfect grounding for a future in
F1.
Piquet's start was good, as was most of the field's, and the Brazilian had a gap of some 1.3seconds by the end of the first lap. James Rossiter was in hot pursuit, but it was fellow BRDC-backed driver Danny Watts who was making the moves away from the start in the lone Lola against a sea of Dallaras.
Watts was in flying form at the circuit where he works as an instructor during the week, taking first Will Power and then Adam Carroll on the first lap. Such was his pace that he was even looking strongly at Rossiter for second, but that particular move failed and Carroll was back in contention for taking his place back.
The nature of the Silverstone GP track and F3 chassis meant that one the cars had settled there was then quite a gap between then, and the circuit being far from tight and twisty, the action was sparce.
Rossiter narrowed the gap to Piquet down to under half a second, but then Piquet stretched it out again. Behind Watts was being gradually dropped, but he was under no pressure from those behind.
In the Scholarship class it was a different story. Ryan Lewis, who had missed out on his eleventh pole for this race, was soon into the class lead whilst the rest of the class squabbled between themselves.
The class poleman, Stephen Jelley, soon became embroiled in an incident with series debuntante James Winslow, and a damaged front left for Jelley and right rear for Winslow was the result.
