“I've only really done one day of testing so far,” he admitted, “half a day here and half a day last time I was at
Silverstone, but the team have made me feel very welcome. Everyone is very good and highly-qualified. If you speak to any of them they have huge amounts of experience. I'm excited at the prospect, and I think as the season goes forward we will make bigger steps forward and go quicker and quicker.
“Dallara have been dominant for the last few years. They certainly have a very strong package with a well-developed chassis, but having said that there's always room for improvement, and there's no reason I don't think if we get things right that we can't challenge them. We would hope the teams on Dallaras are going to make fewer steps forward than we will, so as the season progresses we aim to get closer and closer to the pace and will hopefully overtake them.
“I also know my team-mate Esteban (Guerrieri) from 2005 – I raced with him in one of the rounds of the Euroseries with Midland. He's a good guy and is easy to get on with. We've only done one test together so far, but generally we've been saying the same things about the car and the relationship is working well.”
With 33 cars set to line up on the British F3 grid this year – a championship record – Clucas recognises the competition will be fierce, and he is refusing to lay out any concrete objectives for the season until the action gets underway on 8-9 April at
Oulton Park.
“It will be very tough,” he acknowledged. “If you look down the list of drivers there are some good rookies who have won championships in Formula Renault and the like, and also quite a lot of guys back for another go at it. I think Marko Asmer has to be one of the clear championship favourites. I'm not sure what Maro Engel is going to be doing yet, but he will obviously be a front-runner as well. There's Stephen Jelley too. There are a lot of guys with quite a bit of F3 experience, and they are going to be tough to beat.
