Webb wins and takes British F3 lead

The Fortec driver made another demon getaway to out-drag poleman Jean-Eric Vergne (Carlin) and slot into the lead as the pack hared towards the Adelaide hairpin for the first time.

Much like at Oulton Park on the opening weekend of the season, the top two dropped the rest of the field at a rate of nearly a second per lap - eventually finishing 20.7 seconds clear of Hitech's Gabriel Dias.

The leaders traded fastest laps in the early stages, before Webb asserted himself with the quickest of the race on lap five. Red Bull-backed Frenchman Vergne shadowed his rival throughout the 40 minutes and tried to push Webb into a mistake, but the Formula Renault UK graduate made no noteworthy errors en route to a narrow but well-deserved win.

Carlin's James Calado started seventh after a poor qualifying session yesterday and was the only other driver capable of lapping inside the 1m36s bracket consistently. But time spent stuck behind team-mate Rupert Svendsen-Cook early on cost him a genuine shot at getting on the podium.

Once free of Svendsen-Cook, he closed down Fortec's Daniel McKenzie and passed him for fourth with seven laps to go. He hunted down Dias at the rate of a few tenths per lap in the closing stages, but ran out of time.

McKenzie took a career-best fifth spot, well clear of Svendsen-Cook, who spent most of the race defending from Raikkonen Robertson's Felipe Nasr.

Hywel Lloyd (CF Racing with Manor Motorsport) finshed eighth after a good drive from 15th on the grid, while Carlin duo Lucas Foresti and Jazeman Jaafar rounded out the top 10.

T-Sport's James Cole drove the most impressive race of his F3 career so far to claim the National Class honours. The reigning British Formula Ford champion caught and passed team-mate Menasheh Idafar, then demoted Hitech's double podium finisher William Buller for 12th and almost passed an ailing Adriano Buzaid (Carlin) for 11th on the last lap.

Pos  Driver                Team                 Car     Time/Gap
 1.  Oli Webb              Fortec               D/M   40m00.344s
 2.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Carlin               D/V     + 0.682s
 3.  Gabriel Dias          Hitech               D/V    + 21.401s
 4.  James Calado          Carlin               D/V    + 22.258s
 5.  Daniel McKenzie       Fortec               D/M    + 28.531s
 6.  Rupert Svendsen-Cook  Carlin               D/V    + 35.948s
 7.  Felipe Nasr           Raikkonen Robertson  D/M    + 36.485s
 8.  Hywel Lloyd           CF/Manor             D/M    + 44.046s
 9.  Lucas Foresti         Carlin               D/V    + 46.237s
10.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin               D/V    + 48.578s
11.  Adriano Buzaid        Carlin               D/V    + 58.053s
12.  James Cole            T-Sport              D/H    + 59.082s
13.  William Buller        Hitech               D/V  + 1m01.332s
14.  Max Snegirev          Fortec               D/M  + 1m01.808s
15.  Menasheh Idafar       T-Sport              D/H  + 1m02.557s
16.  Carlos Huertas        Raikkonen Robertson  D/M  + 1m15.805s

Retirements:

     Rio Haryanto          CF/Manor             D/M  18 laps
     Jay Bridger           Litespeed            D/M  16 laps
     Adderly Fong          Sino Vision          D/M  11 laps
     Alex Brundle          T-Sport              D/V  8 laps
     Daisuke Nakajima      Raikkonen Robertson  D/M  1 laps