In the latest Carlin column for Crash.net, driver Maro Engel looks back over the British F3 International Series meeting at Spa and a weekend that saw him claim his first pole position and his maiden victory.
We had an absolutely great weekend at Spa from the very start. The team gave me a great car and you could almost say it was a case of love at first sight. I’d never been to Spa before and it just went fantastically well for me. In hindsight the only thing that went wrong is that I didn’t win race one but to come away from the weekend with 36 points was fantastic.
To get not one pole position but two was great, especially the first one. For the whole team, and especially my engineer Matt Callagham as it was his first pole as well, it was good boost and the final five minutes of qualifying when we pitted must have been the longest five minutes of our lives. We were relieved to get it and to then repeat it in the second qualifying session and claim a second pole position was amazing.
I didn’t really find it hard to learn the Spa circuit, despite the fact it was my first time there. All the circuits back in the UK have a certain character to them and that is maybe where I have found it hardest to adapt, so I found it much easier to adapt to Spa and the big Grand Prix track. Ok, it has its hard and difficult corners, but somehow I seemed to just like it all and be on the pace.
Before race one it was a difficult decision over what to do in terms of tyres. As we were sat on the grid, we had a good look behind us and everyone else was on slicks. Because we were on pole, we weren’t prepared to risk anything so we figured we would go with the same as the others and try and be confident enough to go better than them in the conditions.
