Jonathan Legris stunned the Spanish F3 field at the weekend, running consistently in the top six overall at Jarama, despite driving an ageing Dallara F300 for Team West-Tec.
In a qualifying session that was heavily affected by yellow flags, the young Briton snatched a good 15th place on the grid, even though he was convinced a spot on the front couple of rows was possible had he not been baulked on both of his two flying laps.
A good start to the first race of the weekend saw the F
BMW graduate move strongly through the field to finish in a superb eighth position overall, and the first West-Tec car home, having managed to pass last year's stand-out Christian Ebbesvik when the Norwegian was pushed wide by another car a few laps from home.
As well as the eighth overall, however, Legris finished third in the Copa class, despite racing against much newer - and potentially faster - Dallara F306s which had been added to the class on the eve of the new season..
Starting on the outside of row four for race two as a product of his earlier result, Legris was confident of another good result and made a great start to run sixth overall, dicing with the highly-rated Jaime Alguersuari's newer Dallara F308. The Briton even tried a daring outbraking manoeuvre, which was repelled by the young
Spaniard, who ran over Legris'front wing, removing half of it from the car.
Amazingly, Legris hung on and was able to modify his driving style so that he could still lap within 0.5secs of Alguarsuari, although, inevitably, it also led to the pair coming under pressure from behind. Unfortunately for the West-Tec team, the frenetic action saw Legris become involved in a collision with team-mate Ebbesvik, who had just passed another car and appeared to be tagged just before he tried to then outbrake the Briton.
"I was having a great weekend, until it all got spoiled on Sunday," the Briton sighed, "Saturday was good though, and I know the pace is in the car to get good results with it."
