British F3 news

Van der Zande wins at Silverstone

Renger Van der Zande rose from third on the grid to overhaul Max Chilton and first-time pole-sitter Daisuke Nakajima to claim his third British F3 race win on Sunday. The Dutchman's victory from Race 2 of the weekend saw the Hitech driver on the top of the podium again at the track on which he claimed his first race win back in May.

Nakajima made a copybook start from his maiden British F3 pole in his Raikkonen Robertson Racing machine, pursued by Carlin's Max Chilton and Hitech team-mates van der Zande and Walter Grubmüller, with Ricciardo slotting into fifth on the opening lap.

Lap 8 was decisive to the outcome of the race, van der Zande popping past Chilton for second and Ricciardo catching out Grubmüller to relieve his chief title rival of fourth place. Next lap van der Zande barged past Nakajima around the outside at Abbey to lift the lead and run away with the race.

"The start was not that great for me," said Renger. "But I managed to get close while Max and Daisuke were fighting, then I passed Max around the outside at Luffield, and then a lap later I managed to go around the outside of Nakajima also. There was a bit of wheel-banging on the straight after. At the end I pushed to increase by lead to 11 seconds, and I'm very happy with that."

Chilton fancied his chances of following van der Zande's example in passing Nakajima, and made a move at Becketts on the 11th lap; alas their cars touched and Max not only failed to relieve him of second but also spun back to ninth.

That handed third to Ricciardo. "My start wasn't that good," said Daniel, "and Walter managed to jump me and I fell back to fifth. After a few laps I managed to get by Walter when he made a mistake, and then within a lap or two I was on the back of the leading guys, who were fighting quite aggressively. It was fun to watch them and I really wanted to be a part of the battle but always at the back of my mind was the championship..."

Grubmüller had no answer to Ricciardo in the closing stages and had to settle for fourth, and watch Daniel increase his championship advantage to 45 points.

Nakajima's team-mate Carlos Huertas took fifth ahead of Riki Christodoulou and Chilton, who recovered from his off to twice pass Wayne Boyd to secure seventh. Henry Arundel and Victor Garcia rounded out the top ten.

National Class points leader Daniel McKenzie got tangled up with others' problems on the opening lap and lost a lot of time to T-Sport's Gabriel Dias. Daniel recovered to pass Litespeed's Victor Correa for second in class but could not catch Dias, who said: "The race was good for me. All I can keep doing is to try to take as many wins and fastest laps as I can." McKenzie's championship lead is now 53 points with four races remaining.

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