News

15 Jun 09

7th place for Christian at Zandvoort Masters

In the Tango Masters F3 Event in Zandvoort, Christian Vietoris was the best performer of the Gravity F3 trio, finishing 7^th.

After a brief practice session Saturday morning the F3 cars went out in two groups in the afternoon's initial qualifying session with the odd-numbered runners going out first and even-numbered ones going out next. The top nine from each group then contested a qualifying shootout which determined the first 9 rows of the grid, while the rest of the field filled positions 19 to 36. Christian clocked in at 7^th. "With so many cars out on the track, qualifying almost becomes a lottery, said the Mücke driver, who nevertheless topped the timesheets half way through the session. " And because of the level of competition is so high, if one is not on the first two rows, a top 3 finish is very difficult to achieve here. But it's a long race, so we'll see what happens."

On Sunday afternoon 25.000 spectators filled the grandstands around the sandy Dutch circuit and cheered the impressive filed of young guns as the 19^th running of the Masters of F3 got underway.

The race turned into an all-Finnish affair, with Valtteri Bottas (AST Grand Prix) claiming his first F3 win after leading from start to finish despite some pressure from compatriot Mika Maki. Christian spent most of the race in a maddened bunch of drivers fighting from 4^th to 10^th place, taking 7^th in the end. " I did my best to try and move up the order but we were all racing real close together and getting a clear pass was almost impossible. I made a move on Sims at Tarzan at one point, only to lose out on Waldschmidt  instead! But at least I was able to make up the lost ground a little later. In the end, because of the race's length, the tyres began to fade so I settled for 7^th".