TEAM NEWS: After a lengthy six week break, Carlin’s championship winning COOPER TIRES British F3 team are back in action this weekend at the Rockingham circuit in Northamptonshire. This weekend’s event will add another exciting dimension to British F3, as the drivers will make a compulsory pit stop in race two on Sunday.

Championship leader Jean-Eric Vergne will head to Rockingham in a confident mood, having set the quickest time of anyone in official testing at Rockingham back in March.  More recently, the Red Bull Junior has been busy filling his time between F3 events, including demonstrating the Red Bull F1 car up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Both Adriano Buzaid and James Calado are on top form at the moment, having set the second and fourth quickest times respectively at this week’s official test at Brands Hatch.  Lucas Foresti had an impressive test at Brands on his first outing on the challenging GP circuit, finishing the day sixth quickest.  The 18 year-old Brazilian has been busy with Carlin’s GP3 team during the break in the F3 calendar. 

Jazeman Jaafar has made use of the break in the calendar to make a flying visit home to the Malaysian capital but is keen to regain the momentum that saw him claim two podium finishes at the last British F3 round in Hockenheim.  Team mate Rupert Svendsen-Cook will also be eyeing a return to the podium following his early season race win. 

As well as carrying out their normal race weekend practices, the Carlin drivers will have their first mandatory pit stops to deal with this weekend.  Each British F3 driver must make a pit stop in race two on Sunday, to be taken during a designated pit stop window.

Trevor Carlin said, “Pit stops will be an important part of a drivers’ future career, so it makes sense to give drivers some experience of this in Formula 3.  I think its going to add a really interesting element to the race and will challenge the teams to adopt the best strategy for their drivers.”