NAVIGATION IMAGE MAP HOME CONTACT LINKS SPONSORS GALLERY RESULTS PROFILE NEWS HOME
Stefan wins at Silverstone
Gallery
Round 17
NATIONAL CLASS
1Stefan Wilson
2Jay Bridger
3Hywel Lloyd
4Steven Guerrero
5Salman Al Khalifa
6Craig Reiff
7Kristjan Einar
INTERNATIONAL CLASS
1Oliver Turvey
2Brendon Hartley
3Marcus Ericsson
Round 18
NATIONAL CLASS
1Hywel Lloyd
2Jay Bridger
3Salman Al Khalifa
4Steven Guerrero
5Jonathan Legris
6Craig Reiff
7Kristjan Einar
DNFStefan Wilson
INTERNATIONAL CLASS
1Oliver Turvey
2Marcus Ericsson
3Nick Tandy

2008 British Formula 3

Rounds 17 and 18
Silverstone, 16 August

Stefan came to Silverstone buoyed by his win at Spa and also by a day's testing where he and the team worked on improving the car's set-up. The proof that they had been successful came right away, when Stefan took pole position in qualifying for the first race on Silverstone's International Circuit. For most of the session his team-mate and championship leader Jay Bridger was at the top of the timesheets, but with six minutes to go Stefan went quickest by 0.157s. In the second session it was Stefan who took an early lead and Bridger who had to play catch-up - in vain, though, as Stefan hung on to do the double, this time by a slender 0.024s.

The weather forecasters were wrong in their predictions of rain on race day and both races were run on a completely dry track under partly cloudy skies. Stefan made a good getaway at the start of race one and fended off an early passing attempt by Bridger, who kept the pressure on for every one of the 24 laps. Stefan resisted another challenge from Bridger on the penultimate lap and went on to take the chequered flag for the third win of his F3 career, scoring an extra point for setting the fastest lap.

Race two promised more of the same, and again Stefan led the way off the grid. This time, though, Bridger made a bad start and dropped back to fourth place behind Salman Al Khalifa and Hywel Lloyd. Stefan held on to his lead, again soaking up the pressure, with only a brief respite when Invitation Class driver Oliver Oakes overtook Al Khalifa and stayed between them for a couple of laps. To complicate matters for Stefan, he was being held up by the International Class car of Henry Arundel and was unable to escape from his pursuers. All the same, he was well on his way to a second win until, less than three laps from the end, disaster struck. Seeing a chance to go for the win himself, Al Khalifa dived down the inside at Brooklands, hitting Stefan's car and tipping it into a spin. Stefan was left stranded on the track and had no choice but to jump out and abandon his car. While he walked back to the pits, Al Khalifa was able to recover and went on to finish third.

It was a hugely disappointing end to what had seemed certain to be Stefan's best ever F3 outing. By way of consolation, there was no doubt that he had the fastest National Class car all weekend and that he made no mistakes on track.