30th April 2006

Manor Motorsport continued its superb start to the 2006 Formula 3 Euroseries at the Lausitz EuroSpeedway over the weekend, the Dinnington outfit securing victory in both races to hold a seven-point lead in the team’s championship.

While Kohei Hirate, leader of the driver standings heading into the Lausitz races, didn’t enjoy the best of outings at the German venue, his Manor team-mates Esteban Guerrieri and Kazuki Nakajima each took their maiden F3 Euroseries victories to make the weekend a truly memorable one for John Booth and his squad.

Saturday’s qualifying session saw Guerrieri make it on to the front row of the grid, just a 10th of a second shy of pole position, while Hirate achieved third place and fellow Toyota Driver Development Programme member Nakajima set the ninth fastest time.

The outcome of race one was realistically determined at the very beginning when Argentinean star Guerrieri made an electric start to get the better of pole-sitter Paul Di Resta on the run to the first corner.

After assuming the lead of the race, the 21-year-old went on to claim an unchallenged victory some 29 laps later by six and a half seconds and in doing so became the first Argentinean to win a Formula 3 race on German soil since 1995.

“I am overjoyed with my maiden victory in the Formula 3 Euroseries”, commented Guerrieri, “The start was the key to my success, I had to be in front at the first corner and so I was. My car was perfect but maintaining concentration and not making any mistakes was the main thing.”

Nakajima, meanwhile, crossed the line in eighth position while Hirate endured a nightmare outing and was classified in 18th place, three laps down on the race-winner, due to a sensor problem which over-fuelled his car massively.

Under 2006 rules, the top eight on the grid for the Sunday race at each F3 Euroseries round is comprised by reversing the first eight finishers from the opening race of the weekend. Thus meaning, on this occasion, Nakajima would start from pole position, Guerrieri would line up in eighth place and the unfortunate Hirate would be 18th.

Japanese ace Nakajima made a good getaway for the 24-lap encounter but was beaten off the line by Frenchman Guillaume Moreau who had clearly made a jump-start. Race officials were quick to act though and the Manor ace soon inherited his rightful place at the head of the field as Moreau was forced to enter the pits for the resulting time penalty.

Much like team-mate Guerrieri in Saturday’s race, Nakajima would never be headed from that point on and took the chequered flag by seven and a half seconds. Guerrieri capped a great weekend by finishing in fifth place and Hirate raced strongly to come home in 11th position.

Speaking after the race, a delighted Nakajima said: “I soon found out that Guillaume Moreau had a jump start so I didn’t push too much. My car was super, but I remained on the limit throughout the race. From the outside it looked probably easier than it was and I had to remain focused all the way.”

Guerrieri’s maiden category victory has helped him move into joint-second position of the Formula 3 Euroseries driver standings, just two points adrift of the championship lead, while Nakajima remains in fourth position and countryman Hirate slips from the series lead to fifth place - although he is just six points away from the top spot.

Manor’s F3 Euroseries operation will be back in competitive action three weeks from now on Saturday, 20th May, and Sunday, 21st May, at Oschersleben in Germany.