The third round of the 2008 F3 Euro Series took place at the famous Pau circuit on the weekend where ART Grand Prix driver James Jakes secured his maiden pole position.
The very challenging 2.76 km street circuit then saw the young Brit secure his debut win for the season in what can only be described as a very chaotic event due to a damp track with all drivers on slick tyres.
Only ten drivers crossed the finish line, one of which was teammate Jon Lancaster who joined James on the podium with a third placed finish after starting back in twelfth place, after fighting tooth and nail with Mortara for second.
Meanwhile, teammate Jules Bianchi suffered a heavy accident in the final minutes of qualifying and was then forced to watch the end of the race from the sidelines alongside teammate Nico Hülkenberg. Jules had a big crash at the Pont Oscar in race 1 whilst climbing his way up from P15 while Nico crashed in the tricky Parc Beaumont section whilst fighting for a position on the podium.
Race two saw three of the four ART drivers finish with James leading the way once again in sixth, Jon in seventh and Nico in 16th and while Jules was classified at the end, he was three laps down in 26th place after a spin whilst fighting with James Jakes after another strong come back.
Nico Hülkenberg:
Race 1 Position on the starting grid: 4th Result: DNF
Race 2 Position on the starting grid: 19th Result: 16th
Position in the championship: 5th, 14 points
"Qualifying was OK. P2 was not a bad result if you consider the second group was quicker because the track was drying. Race 1 was good up to lap 10 when I touched a wet spot. I picked up oversteer and could not avoid the crash on such a narrow street track.
That’s unfortunate, it’s my mistake and I was unlucky because then the second race was always going to be difficult. We chose to set the car up for a damp track and did not foresee it would dry that fast. As a consequence the car was not that good in race 2 and I was often stuck behind a slower car with no opportunity to get passed."
James Jakes:
Race 1 Position on the starting grid: Pole position Result: Winner
Race 2 Position on the starting grid: 8th Result: 6th
Position in the championship: 7th, 12 points
"It wasn’t a bad race, great qualifying, and I am very happy to get the win. I’m looking forward to the next race. The second race, I didn’t make the best of the opportunities at the start, I took too long to get passed a car, and I should have made the move quicker, and then the track dried out at the end and it was very difficult. No doubt the team and I had a great weekend, got a lot of points which is great."
Jules Bianchi:
Race 1 Position on the starting grid: 15th Result: DNF
Race 2 Position on the starting grid: 17th Result: 26th
Position in the championship: 9th, 9 points
"My level of performance was good and to finish the weekend with no points is frustrating. The telemetry shows I lost 1.4 second on my fastest lap because of the yellow flags and then I crashed. The track was drying and a lot of others improved. In race 1 Van der Zende closed the door up to a point that I had to hit the kerb.
Our cars touched and I stalled. In race 2 I started P17 and was P7 when I tried to overtake James at the same place where I overtook a lot of drivers, in an unexpected section. I think he did not see me and lifted a bit, and we touched a bit. He then made a mistake and I took the outside line to avoid him. But I run over a white painted line when I tried to come back on the dry track and spun."
Jon Lancaster:
Race 1 Position on the starting grid: 12th Result: 3rd
Race 2 Position on the starting grid: 7th Result: 7th
Position in the championship: 13th, 6 points
"We did better than expected! We were quick in qualifying but unfortunately we went off. I managed to make the most of what we had, I made a few quick manoeuvres, and I was able to catch people and past them. I passed two people at one corner, and a couple more people crashed right in front of us which helped, and we just kept pushing and pushing and ended up third.
The second race was our first wet race, the beginning you couldn’t see anything whatsoever except a white spray. But we were pushing on, and we were all evenly matched which made it difficult to get any further forward. My car was very quick and in the end we came out very quick, and it started to dry out a little bit more, and if some people hadn’t gotten in the way we probably would’ve won!
It was a great weekend, first points, first podium, and it’s the first step. We’ve gotta keep pushing, towards our next step which is obviously a win."
Frédéric Vasseur:
Once again we had our ups and downs. Three pole positions in three races proves our intrinsic performances are extremely good and without an engine break at Hockenheim we could have had 3 wins in race 1. Unfortunately on a mathematical level we are far away from the drivers championship. James and Jon were very strong in difficult conditions but it was Nico and Jules’ turn to have some problems.
Jules had the potential to do great but he compromised his weekend with a crash during his fastest lap in qualifying and Nico played his joker in Pau. Jules got caught out again by his enthusiasm in both races.
We now have to put all the pieces together to have a real 100% good weekend with our 4 drivers. It is too bad as we have rarely had such a start to a season, with 3 pole positions.
- Sandrine FOIX-
