Maiden pole for James Jakes on home soil
British driver, James Jakes (Manor Motorsport, 0:41.704 min)
claimed pole position for the third season round of the Formula
3 Euro Series. The 19-year old from Leeds was 0.013 seconds
faster than his team mate Franck Mailleux (0:41.717 min).
Thus, the Frenchman was best-placed rookie at the 1.929 kilometres
long Brands Hatch Indy circuit. Points leader, Sébastien
Buemi (Mücke Motorsport, 0:41.993 min) only ranked eighth.
With only a few minutes to go, Jakes took over the top position
from Romain Grosjean (ASM Formule 3, 0:41.825 min.). Almost
at the same time, Mailleux also outpaced Grosjean. The Frenchman,
who lives in the Swiss city of Geneva, wasn’t able to
counter anymore and had to make do with third. Just how close
the competition is in the world’s toughest junior racing
series becomes clear by a glance at the qualifying result:
all 22 cars ranged within 1.05 seconds.
James Jakes (Manor Motorsport): “I
am happy with my first-ever pole position in the Formula 3
Euro Series. Qualifying went fairly well, although an even
faster lap time was within reach. Now, I have to score as
many points as possible to be able to challenge Sébastien
Buemi for the lead in the points’ standings.”
Franck Mailleux (Manor Motorsport): “For
qualifying, I took James’ set-up. I did two laps that
were really quick. After that, I would even have been quicker,
but I was slowed down by yellow flags.”
Romain Grosjean (ASM Formule 3): “Actually,
things went fairly well for me, I was in the lead for quite
a while. Therefore, I am a little bit disappointed with third
place. I think that I could have matched James Jakes’
lap time. My problem was the first corner, I didn’t
have a good feeling there.”
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