Buller takes Hockenheim podium

Buller takes Hockenheim podium

Hitech Racing secured its second podium of the weekend in the final race at Hockenheim, with Will Buller securing his best result to date in the Cooper Tires British F3 International Series.

The MSA Team UK driver had lost out on a podium finish with a drive-through penalty in race one but a strong start from fourth on the grid in race three saw him make up a position on the opening lap.

Will then battled ahead of Adriano Buzaid into second place and although he couldn’t match the pace of leader Jean-Eric Vergne, he put in a strong performance to hold his place to the finish despite the close attentions of Jazeman Jaafar as the race wore on.

It gave Will his third podium finish of the two overseas events, after a brace of third places at Magny-Cours a week earlier.

“It’s great to get on the podium after the way the weekend started, when we were a couple of seconds off the pace in practice,” he said.“The team worked hard and really had to dig deep to get this result. The plan coming here was to try and improve on my third place finishes at Magny-Cours and I’ve done that with a second place. Now I have to try and go one better again at Rockingham.

“Vergne has been quick in these overseas events but Rockingham is a circuit I know well so I might have a bit of an advantage over him. Six weeks is a long time before our next British F3 race but I’m confident we’ll be right up there.”

Team-mate Gabriel Dias went into the final race on a high after a stunning win in race two, the second time this season he has secured maximum points. Unfortunately the Brazilian lost out at the start to drop back to fourth place and then flat-spotted his tyres when he locked up under braking.

A charging Jaafar demoted Gabriel to fifth but he drove a consistent race to lap strongly and hold off the challenge of James Calado to add eight more points to his championship tally. Gabriel leaves Hockenheim fourth in the standings, just five points behind Calado.

“I made a bad start and dropped back to fourth but I locked my wheels and flat-spotted my tyres,” he said. “Although Jaafar got ahead of me, my pace was consistent with the rest of the field – apart from Vergne – although I did have to defend to keep Calado behind me. It was a good result for the points and I leave this weekend fourth in the championship which is good.”

Hitech boss Ryan Sharp was pleased to see Will secure his best finish of the season to date and insisted the team could head back to its Buckingham base happy with how the German weekend had panned out.

“Will made a good start to get up to third and could have possibly taken second off the line but he played it safe and then made a really impressive move on Buzaid to take the place,” he said. “Gabriel was slow off the line and then flat-spotted his tyres but he drove a solid race to finish fifth and score more points for the championship despite pressure from behind.

“Pace wise this has been our best weekend yet and the results have been good again. Will is getting much more consistent and that’s three podiums in six races for him – which would have been four without his penalty in race one. Gabriel picked up a second win and has been on the pace all weekend; he was the class of the field in race two. There is a large break in the series now but we’ll be chasing some more big points when we go to Rockingham.”