Race Report

2016 Formel 1 Grosser Preis von Deutschland
GP3 SERIES

Circuit: Hockenheim (D), Length 4,574 km, 30^th/31^st July 2016, Rounds 9 & 10
www.hockenheimring.net

JENZER MOTORSPORT 2016:
Akash Nandy (MAS) and ARJUN MAINI (IND)

MAINI CONVINCING AT HOCKENHEIM

The GP3 Series met up at the popular Hockenheimring circuit, racing as one of the support races for the Formel 1 Grosser Preis von Deutschland. This was their fifth outing supporting the 2016 Grand Prix Programme.

Race One Qualifying

Saturday, 30/07/16, 09.45 – 10.15, Weather: Sunny, 24°C

The free practice session on Friday afternoon took place in beautiful sunshine. The difficult track proved to be quite demanding for the drivers with close lap times throughout the field. Arjun was 16^th and Akash 22^nd.
The track was also dry for qualifying and provided a very exciting session, where positions changed frequently. In the end the top four drivers set times within a tenth of a second, and 18 drivers were within one second of the pole time. Arjun and Akash gave their all; Arjun was on his fastest lap when Tereschenko blocked him which meant Arjun finished in 13^th place. Unfortunately it was no help to him when Tereschenko was hit with a three place grid penalty afterwards. Akash would start from 21^st on the grid.

GP3 Series

Race One (40 Minutes)

Saturday, 30/07/16, 17.20, Weather: Cloudy, 26°C

Dennis stalled and the start had to be aborted. After a second green flag lap the second start went well. The first lap was exciting with several incidents that meant the Virtual Safety Car had to be deployed. Arjun had managed to avoid the various incidents and was in 11^th at this stage. Akash had also made up some places and was 15th. At the restart there was much movement, but our drivers kept their positions. Arjun then managed to overtake Stuvik to take 10^th place before closing the gap to the next driver and launching his attack. Step by step Arjun improved impressively putting in a terrific drive to score points again, and finishing comfortably in an excellent 7^th place. Akash also drove well, made no mistakes and held 15^th for a very long time. He too overtook Stuvik, and later on also overtook Joerg. After a strong race he took the chequered flag in a very good 13^th place.

The grid for the second race of the weekend was set by reversing the order of the first eight finishers in the first race, with the rest of the places set according to finishing order in the first race.

GP3 Series

Race Two (30 Minutes)

Sunday, 31/07/16, 09.15, Weather: Cloudy, 21°C

The race was started on time and Arjun shot into the lead after a great getaway. On the second lap there was an accident and the Virtual Safety Car had to be deployed yet again. Hughes attacked Arjun and overtook him before the hairpin and although it was clear that the Virtual Safety Car had already been deployed the race director announced that no further action would be taken against Hughes. This was wrong and Hughes should have at least given the position back immediately. During the Virtual Saftety Car Phase Hughes car was clearly faster compared to everybody else, and a big gap to Arjun resulted despite the fact that the pushing the button in the Virtual Safety Car phase should mean the cars all run at the same speed. Arjun tried desperately to go faster, but this was electronically impossible, and so he missed the restart, fell back to 8^th and had to work his way forward again. He was soon back into 6^th from where he was able to put pressure on and then pass Parry. He set a furious pace to close the gap to Ferrucci but time was running out and he couldn’t launch any further attacks. Arjun had again produced some brilliant racing and claimed valuable points with his very good 5^th place. Akash made a good start from a very promising 13^th place on the grid but then had to avoid an incident and ran very wide. That cost him a lot of momentum and several places. He then managed a good run for positions. First he managed to overtake Schothorst, and was then able to pile pressure on Palou. Akash finally took the chequered flag in a decent 16^th place ahead of Palou.

We are now looking forward to the next race which will take place in four week’s time at Spa-Francorchamps (B).

Championship standings after 10 out of 18 races:

1^st Charles Leclerc (F), 126 points; 2^nd Alexander Albon (THA), 123 points; 3^rd Antonio Fuoco (I), 115 points; 4^th Matt Parry (GB), 70 points; 5^th Nick de Vries (NL), 65 points; 6^th Ralph Boschung (CH), 48 points; 11^th Arjun Maini, 32 points; 12^th Oscar Tunjo (COL), 18 points

2016 GP3 Series

For more information:

• www.gp3series.com
• www.italiaracing.net