21st August 2006

Manor Motorsport team-mates Esteban Guerrieri and Kohei Hirate are locked together on equal points in third position of the Formula 3 Euroseries driver standings following the 11th and 12th rounds of the season at the Nurburgring over the weekend.

During the first race at the world-famous German venue on Saturday, Argentinean star Guerrieri saw his recent run of bad luck continue when he was forced out of proceedings on the opening lap due to a collision with Paolo Nocera.

On the flip-side, Japanese sensation Hirate converted sixth place on the grid into fifth position at the chequered and in doing so moved up to third position in the championship at the expense of team-mate Guerrieri who, in turn, slipped to fourth one spot ahead of fellow Manor driver Kazuki Nakajima.

The Japanese ace, who along with team-mate Hirate is a key member of the Toyota Driver Development Programme, also improved during round 11 but missed out on a points-paying place even though climbing from 11th on the grid to ninth in the race.

But on Sunday, the increasingly entertaining championship battle between Guerrieri and Hirate took yet another intriguing turn when the former produced one of the best drives of his Formula 3 career to climb from the final row on the grid to fifth position in round 12.

As a result of his non-finish in Saturday’s race, Guerrieri was forced to start from 25th on the grid for the second encounter but even a surprise rain shower part way through the 18-lap race couldn’t prevent the 21-year-old from recording an excellent fifth place result, climbing an outstanding 20 positions, to claim two championship points.

Guerrieri did actually take the chequered flag in sixth place but a controversial collision between Giedo van der Garde and Paul Di Resta saw the latter receive a 30-second penalty for his part in the incident. Not only did Di Resta lose the race win, the penalty also dropped him to 13th position overall and thus saw Guerrieri promoted to fifth place.

The additional championship point enabled the Manor ace to return to third position in the driver standings, level-pegging on 32 points with team-mate Hirate who unfortunately retired from round 12 on lap two. Nakajima, meanwhile, endured a difficult race in the second encounter of the weekend, the Japanese star crossing the line in 18th position.

Commenting on the weekend’s results, Manor team boss John Booth said: “Friday’s free practice was quite promising for us and we were certainly fairly confident of qualifying well for Saturday’s race. Unfortunately, we couldn’t quite find those last couple of 10ths of a second which made all the difference.

“Esteban and Kohei both did well to take some points away from the weekend, Esteban in particular considering he started the second race from the back of the grid. Kazuki didn’t drive at all badly in race one but starting in 11th place was always going to make scoring some points a tall order. Race two, unfortunately, just didn’t work out for him.”

Following the Nurburgring races, Dinnington-based Manor remains in second position overall in the 2006 F3 Euroseries team’s classification although with an increased total of 83 points.

Rounds 13 and 14 of the season will take place two weeks from now, 2nd/3rd September, at Zandvoort in the Netherlands. Manor has, of course, already visited the circuit once this year for the BP Ultimate Masters event, a non-scoring, stand-alone race which took place at the beginning of August.