Rodolfo Gonzalez was unable to follow up his fine qualifying performance on race day at
Silverstone during the latest rounds of the British F3 International Series.
The reigning National Class champion had qualified on the second row of the grid for both races and was confident of fighting right at the front of the pack when the two races kicked off.
At the start of race one, Gonzalez quickly jumped up to second place behind Marko Asmer but, after a brief Safety Car period, was involved in an incident with Atte Mustonen that spun him down the order. While making his way back through the pack, the Venezuelan was forced to retire after a coming together with John Martin and Esteban Guerrieri.
In the second race, Gonzalez didn't get away as well but climbed back to fourth before damaging the bargeboard on his T-Sport Dallara and slipping back down to seventh.
“I think it's the best qualifying performance of the season followed by the worst race performance,” he reflected to
Crash.net. “Its pretty crap really. Qualifying third and fourth was nice and then on the opening race after the Safety Car, I tried to attack Asmer but I came out of Copse a bit slow and it gave Mustonen a run beside me into Maggots and Becketts where he was on the outside. We touched and spun, he was lucky as he had a 360 and carried on but I couldn't. I got going again but it wasn't too good and I ended up crashing with Guerrieri and Martin in the end. Race one was a complete disaster.
“Race two was also a disaster but not as bad. We finished seventh but started fourth. I lost two places at the start with too much wheel-spin but climbed back to fourth. I went into Copse which I did flat in qualifying but had oversteer which allowed Devaney to get past me and they kept pulling away. Valerio got past me and when I tried to pass him we touched and I ran over the kerb which damaged the bargeboard and meant I lost downforce and then Sam Bird got past.
