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23/06/2010
Methley Triumphs at the Ring
Competitors for the second round of the Historic Formula Three Championship at the Nurburgring were greeted by fog shrouded Eifel mountains, nineteen F3s were entered, three in F3/1 (side-draught cars) the remainder were in F3/2 with a further six Formula Juniors completing the field. Dick van Amsterdam from F3/1 and Klaus Bergs from F3/2 were both non starters. Friday’s proceedings commenced with two laps of the Nordschleife and sadly Grant Saunders run of atrocious luck continued when his March 703 lost oil pressure in the assembly area thus ruling him out for the remainder of the weekend.
A half hour free practice had been laid on for the afternoon and everyone except Jim Chapman (Lotus 59) and Jens Hauge (Brabham BT21) ventured out into the murk, David Methley and Roland Fischer ran in close company for most of the session and they proved to be fastest in the session, Fischer fastest by just over a second, Blees, Gustafson, Derossi were closely bunched followed by Renavand and Bonny Delea’s Brabham BT16 was the first class 1 car in 8th. Philippe Bonny had a spin at the final chicane but was returned to the paddock unharmed on the end of a rope.
Qualifying was early on Saturday morning and again Methley and Fischer set the pace though by the end of the session it was Methley ahead of Fischer who had been a second quicker in Friday’s fog! Derossi was third in a session which was interrupted by rain after 20 minutes ahead of Gustafson and Blees, the Tecnos of Bonny and Renavand were sixth and ninth split by Tizzard and Slotine with Leif Bosson in his BT28 taking four seconds of his Friday time in tenth Delea was the faster of the class one cars followed by Chapman, Petersen, Retzlaff and Poponcini in his beautiful class one Cooper. Sadly the gremlins caught up with Maurice Slotine’s Merlyn which broke a drive coupling and Michel Renavand’s Tecno which initially looked to have lost a clutch slave cylinder but on investigation it turned out to be a broken shaft in the gearbox, another broken drive coupling removed Cesare Delea’s class one Brabham.
It was a reduced field that assembled for race one, but it did include Jens Hauge who had missed qualifying with gear selection problems, the organisers happy to accept his Nordschleife laps as being sufficient practice. Methley made a clean start from pole ahead of Fischer who pressed hard but had no answer for the Englishman who held his lead throughout the thirty minute race, Hauge pulled in to retire at the end of the second lap stuck in top. Blees held third ahead of Derossi, a fast starting Stuart Tizzard was holding off Gustafson whose car had bogged down on the line, eventually the Swede found a way past and set off after Derossi. Jim Chapman who had started thirteenth was working his way through the field passing Bosson and setting off after Philippe Bonny who was forced to retire on lap eight with major mechanical problems leaving Chapman with Tizzard in his sights. Toward the front Blees and Derossi had been evenly matched but on lap twelve a broken rocker shaft stopped the Frenchman promoting Gustafson to fourth and Chapman, who had eventually found his way past a tenacious Tizzard, to fifth. Petersen and Bosson had a spirited battle before Petersen drew clear to take seventh. Poponcini and Retzlaff were the last two cars still running although Derossi was classified twelth.
Overnight it was confirmed that Bonny, Renavand, Slotine, Delea and Hauge had been eliminated by mechanical problems and Eric Petersen was to miss the second race having returned home for family reasons. Sunday dawned wet and cold so much debate took place on the subject of wet tyres, to run them or not? Jim Chapman’s Lotus runs centre lock wheels and while he had wets he only had one set of wheels, and ended up with wets on the front and dry tyres on the rear. By race time the weather had dried out and in fact the sun was sighted! Once again Methley led away from the start pursued by Fischer, Blees, Derossi, Tizzard and Gustafson, by the second lap Blees had Tizzard and Gustafson on his tail Derossi having had a quick spin. By the third lap Gustafson had passed Tizzard and was starting to gain on Blees, by this point Methley had extended his lead to six seconds over Fischer increasing it to almost fifteen seconds at one point, Derossi meantime was recovering rapidly and was soon on Tizzard’s tail, finding a way past on the sixth lap and chasing after Gustafson. Behind this developing battle, Bosson, Retzlaff and Poponcini were having lonely races, Blees had been holding a fairly comfortable cushion at one point, but by lap ten messrs Gustafson and Derossi were growing ever larger in his mirrors, a situation not helped by his tyres ‘going off’. For the last four laps these three were nose to tail across the line before fanning out as they dived into the first corner, traditional F3! Somehow they came home in one piece with a relieved Max Blees in third just ahead of Gustafson and Derossi, Tizzard was sixth ahead of Bosson, Robert Retzlaff had been struggling for gears for the last few laps lost drive as he took the flag ahead of Mauro Poponcini whose throttle cable broke on lap thirteen.
David Methley took two well deserved victories ahead of the hard driving Roland Fischer who never gave up and Max Blees who took the overall third place, Ferdinand Gustafson was a delighted fourth. A successful meeting, which had more than its share of mechanical woes, but which once again demonstrated that the F3s produce good clean racing. Many thanks to Duncan Rabagliati of Formula Junior Association for all of his kind help to 1000ccF3HRA.
