With early season runaway pace-setter Bruno Senna on pole position ahead of his championship leading team-mate Mike Conway, the first of the Lloyds TSB Insurance British Formula 3 races at the weekend promised to be a battle royale between the two Raikkonen Robertson Racing charges.
Senna was determined to close the points gap on Conway, while his team-mate was evidently keen on putting more fresh air between the pair in the title chase.
Conway wasted little time in reclaiming his second place from Jarvis with a stunning move around the outside of Stowe on the opening lap, and when Senna subsequently ran wide going into Club his team-mate pounced to steal the lead and cross the line for the first time with a 1.1 second advantage over the Brazilian, with Jarvis third, Jelley fourth, James Walker fifth and the fast-starting Yelmer Buurman sixth.
Expertly mastering the conditions, by the end of the lap three Conway had stretched his advantage out to a cavernous 4.8 seconds, and as Senna began to establish himself in second Jarvis came under increasing pressure from Jelley, Walker and Buurman behind for his third place. The latter, clearly revelling in the tricky conditions and looking increasingly racy, moved past Walker into fifth, while Alexander Khateeb confirmed the treacherous nature of the track surface by spinning off and beaching his car in the gravel.
Although Senna pegged his team-mate for the first on lap five, the Sevenoaks ace responded in fine style next time around by extending his lead to over five seconds. The Brazilian wasn’t done yet though, setting a series of fastest laps to inexorably close the gap on the race leader and he had it down to 3.5 seconds by the time the safety car came out following a mid-pack collision that left one car stranded precariously out on track.
