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Promising
signs ahead for team BRM’s home track attack.
MALLALA - Saturday, April 16th, 2005 – Sometimes things just
don’t go quite the way they were planned.
Example
in question: Team BRM at Mallala, South Australia – their home
track and a circuit where the team was expecting to be the pace
setters.
However,
the old adage mentioned above came into full force under the perfectly
clear Mallala skies today as the team endured a difficult start
to the second round of this years ultra competitive Kumho Tyres
Australian Formula 3 Championship.
After
pacing the field during opening Friday practice, Team BRM Driver
Michael Trimble set fifth fastest time in both of today’s sessions,
meaning that the 20 year old Victorian will line up on the third
row of the grid for both of tomorrow’s 20-lap races.
As
a testament to the series’ level of competition of late, Trimble’s
fifth place in session two saw him lap just three tenths of a second
off the pole winner’s time.
“We
really just struggled for set-up today after missing the second
session yesterday (When a clutch pack failed),” he explained.
“I think we potentially have a very good race car, it will
just be a matter of getting it back to where it was yesterday and
we should be in business. We aren’t out of this yet, and we
will give it our best shot tomorrow.”
Hometown
hero Tim Slade had a less than satisfying day, as he continued to
come to grips with the team’s latest Dallara F304 that arrived
in the country just last Tuesday.
The
19-year-old Adelaidian will start the opening race from the rear
of the field, after a scrutineering issue relegated the new car
to the rear of the field. 8th fastest in the second session (just
a second from the pole position time) proved that the team and driver
were beginning to get a handle on the car.
“A
difficult day,” explained Slade. “Obviously, we have a
lot of work to do with the car to get it into the pace of the leaders.
We know that the potential is there but the lack of miles we have
done on the car is the problem.
We will keep working away at it and im confident that we can get
up there tomorrow.”
Team
BRM’s Kumho Tyres Trophy Class contender Marc Williams continued
his strong run of improvement, scoring pole position for both Trophy
Class races tomorrow. His time of 1m05.9215s placed him within striking
distance of the leaders and 7th overall. 10th in the second sessions
still assured him of pole in the Trophy Competition.
“Its
great to get pole and great to be getting quicker and quicker,”
enthused the 16-year-old Kiwi. “The first session was the best,
and we are getting down to the times I want to be doing.”
In
a further boost for the team’s fortunes this weekend team BRM’s
“de-facto” fourth car this weekend, the Dallara F301 of
Victorian Tim Macrow, grabbed pole position for both races tomorrow.
Team BRM engineer Craig Rundle has been assisting the small Macrow
team with the car set-up and preparation since they took it over
at the Australian Grand Prix in March.
“We
really couldn’t be happier about the way today has gone,”
enthused Macrow after taking his first ever Formula 3 pole positions.
“We put a heap of hard work into rebuilding the car after the
Grand Prix and it hasn’t missed a beat since we put it on the
track yesterday.
“It
was a committed Lap (the race one pole lap) and at first I didn’t
believe that I had set the time! We are really looking forward to
the races tomorrow because we think we have a car that can race
strongly tomorrow.” He said.
Round
two of the 2005 Kumho Tyres Australian Formula 3 Championship will
be concluded with two, 20-lap races tomorrow.
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