What a difference some rain makes. The first race of the day in the British Formula Three championship may not have set the world alight in terms of excitement, but the second race was more than enlivened with a heavy shower just before the start.
Heavy rain meant a dash for wet tyres with seemingly the entire grid undertaking a swap for wets. Unnoticed by most was the Fortec of Marcus Marshall, the Aussie having made the right call on the pommie weather...
Two formation laps were called for, as the runners had not run on wet at
Silverstone yet this meeting. Trevor Carlin's team made the right call to opt for slick tyres for Alvaro Parente and Clivio Piccione. The surprise was that no-one else opted for dry tyres, as most of the circuit was dry.
Race start and it was all change at the front. The front-runners were away cleanly, but it was Rob Austin in the Menu Motorsports Dallara who found his way past race one winner Nelson Piquet. Austin has looked strong in these conditions before and minds were cast back to the mixed conditions of
Donington Park in 2003.
2004 at Silverstone there was going to be quite some battle ahead before anything like that could happen. Piquet has been well on form of late and wasn't about to let F3 returnee Austin away lightly, try though the FCUK-backed driver might.
The end of lap one saw Austin lead Piquet from Carroll, Power, Rossiter, Di Grassi, Watts, Piccione, Asmer with Fairuz Fauzy rounding off the top ten.
Marcus Marshall was at this point sat in thirteenth place, whilst the Scholarship class saw Stephen Jelley leading series leader Ryan Lewis.
At the end of the second lap Fauzy came into the pits, deciding that slicks were indeed the way forward. The P1 Motorsport Dallara retook to the circuit and within a handful of tours it was setting fastest laps. Slicks were clearly going to be the winning tyre, and there was but one driver out there who had started with these.
