Niall Breen admits he is surprised how quickly he has adapted to Formula 3 after a stellar first-half of the season racing for the leading Carlin Motorsport team.
Making the substantial leap from Formula
BMW, where he was the dominant champion in 2006, to Formula 3, Breen has been surrounded by impressive competition not least from within the Carlin team -, but has established himself remarkably well.
Indeed, along with Formula Renault graduates Sam Bird and Sebastien Hohenthal, Breen has been one of the big rookie standouts of 2007, the Irishman currently lying sixth after 14 races having already tasted the winner's champagne at
Snetterton.
The beginning of the season was good but I had a problem with my race starts. Fortunately I managed to sort that out fairly quickly. Snetterton was great, to win my first race at only my seventh start was such a great feeling. Hopefully I'll get a few more wins this season.
I certainly didn't expect to win at Snetterton, in fact I didn't think I'd be that competitive as I struggled there in testing. Qualifying second and winning the race was a big surprise!
Moving up from Formula BMW, Breen claims the jump in power and size was not as daunting as he expected, even if he had to juggle racing with his university studies too.
I didn't find it that difficult actually. After a couple of days in the car, I felt quite comfortable. I did all of the official tests, but I missed out on some of the team tests because I was over in Ireland at university. That put me a bit behind my team mates at the start of the season, but it was what I had to do at the time.
