Sebastian Hohenthal is adamant he has the British F3 International Series title in his sights in 2008 despite the fact that he has yet to firm up a deal to return to the championship.
The young Swede competed for Fortec Motorsport during the 2007 campaign, his rookie year in the series. He impressed onlookers as he took fastest lap on his debut at Oulton Park and again at
Donington Park three races later, seized pole position at
Thruxton, stormed to victory at
Brands Hatch Fortec's only triumph of the season and comfortably saw off his two Mansell brother team-mates
en route to a top-ten end-of-year placing, despite being on a limited budget and having made the leap up from Formula Renault UK, where he had clinched the crown in 2006 at his second attempt.
There was also, off-track, a well-publicised spat with Greg Mansell following the Monza meeting in June, with the pair reputedly almost coming to blows and the subsequent fall-out causing the team to split into two and Hohenthal to complete the season effectively running alone as a single car. As he looks ahead to 2008 now, though, and facing a choice between driving for either Fortec or reigning champions Hitech Racing for whom he tested at
Silverstone at the end of last year, he is determined to focus on the positives.
I didn't do much F3 testing [prior to the season] because my budget was short from the beginning, the 23-year-old explained, talking to
Crash.net, but I went straight into the official test at Pembrey and was immediately P2 to [Marko] Asmer. Then we went on being quick and broke the lap record at
Oulton Park.
After that it went a bit down and the mid-season wasn't that great for us, but we fought our way back up again and managed to win a race, put the car on pole position and finished with two podiums in the last round at Rockingham.
