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Sunday, 3rd February 2008

Opes Prime BRM driver leads after Eastern Creek.

Nathan Caratti has had a perfect start to the 2008 Kumho Tyres Australian Formula 3 Championship after dominating the only race held at Eastern Creek raceway.

The second race was cancelled after just four laps – all of them behind the Safety Car - due to torrentially wet conditions that left the circuit flooded and unsafe for the cars to race at any speed.

Caratti made the best start to the first race from the outside of the front row and topped the 21-car field into the first corner. From there, he was never headed – despite resisting race-long pressure from team-mate James Winslow.

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Like his Opes Prime Team BRM team-mate, Winslow jumped ahead of polesitter Leanne Tander in the opening few corners of race one and ran second for the duration, never more than 1.5 seconds behind Caratti.

Tander was a disappointed third whilst the third of the BRM trio, 17-year-old New Zealander Earl Bamber finished fourth in his debut Formula 3 race.

However all had to trail Caratti who lead lights-to-flag to record his maiden Formula 3 win and leap to an early lead in the race for the Australian Drivers Championship.

”I got a good start which put us into the lead straight away,” he said. ”After that it was all about controlling the race and I was able to settle into a comfortable groove. I'm really happy to take my first win and with it being the first round of the season it's a perfect start for us.

“There were a couple of moments through traffic when I saw that James was catching up but I never really felt that threatened. It was about keeping the car on track and not making any mistakes.”

Winslow said he was pleased to record second place in the season opener after a difficult start to the weekend.

”I got a good start in the race and made up a place, which helped get us onto the podium – and then I made another place later in the first lap,” he explained. ”We had some setup problems earlier in the weekend but we worked through them and in the end we had a lot of pace. It's a shame we didn't run the second race but in the end we're leaving in second position which is great.”

Behind the top four, a recovering Neil McFadyen and Mat Sofi completed the top six.

McFadyen, in his return to the Australian Drivers Championship with Piccola Scuderia, had a slow start and dropped to seventh on the opening lap before working his way through the National class competitors to score a solid points haul from the first round.

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