|
Ryan Lewis stunned the opposition with third place overall in qualifying for round 15 of the Avon Tyres British Formula 3 Championship at Oulton Park today. The BES Plc T-Sport driver, in a three year-old Scholarship car, posted a time of 1min 43.805, comfortably ahead of his Scholarship rival Stephen Jelley and just a few tenths off overall pole position set by Nelson Angelo Piquet.
Now the 20 year-old from Royston, who currently holds a 94-point advantage over Jelley, will line up on the second row behind Piquet and Fairuz Faury with Jelley 14 places behind in 17th.
Lewis, the reigning FPA champion in his first season in Formula 3, ran in the top 10 throughout the session and with nine minutes remaining pitted to change tyre pressures and front wing settings, after struggling with understeer. As the track dried he moved up to sixth and on his final tour hooked up the perfect lap in drying conditions to snatch third ahead of Alvaro Parente.
Now his impressive performance in first qualifying for tomorrow's opening race will see the youngster start from his highest grid slot this season and comfortably ahead of Jelley in his bid to take double scholarship honours.
“I'm really happy with that,” said a delighted Ryan. “The session started wet and started to dry out mid-way through so I knew the quickest times would come at the end. I tried to get pole for the Scholarship class early on, which I did, then tried to push as hard as I could to get a top 10 place overall. About 10 minutes to go I had bad understeer and the front left tyre was graining a bit so I pitted, we changed the pressures and the front wing to try and find some more grip. I was steadily improving lap after lap and got up to 6th quickest then on my final lap I hooked all the sectors up great, found the drying lines and was able to take Island flat out which gave me 3rd overall.”
Qualifying for tomorrow's second race takes place at 14.05 this afternoon with the two 14 lap races tomorrow starting at 12.43 and 16.08.
Avon Tyres British Formula 3 Scholarship Qualifying
1. RYAN LEWIS BES Dallara F301 Mugen-Honda 1:43.805
2. Stephen Jelley Dallara F301 Opel-Spiess 1:45.757
3. Ronayne O'Mahony Dallara F301 Opel-Spiess 1:47.130
4. Vasilije Calasan Dallara F301 Mugen-Honda 1:47.305
Avon Tyres British Formula 3 overall qualifying
1. Nelson A Piquet Dallara F304 Mugen-Honda 1:43.671
2. Fairuz Faury Dallara F304 Mugen-Honda 1:43.678
3. RYAN LEWIS BES Dallara F301 Mugen-Honda 1:43.805
4. Alvaro Parente Dallara F304 Mugen-Honda 1:43.826
5. James Rossiter Dallara F304 Opel-Spiess 1:43.877
6. Lucas DI-GRASSI Dallara F304 Renault Sodemo 1:43.931
Editor's note: Copyright free images of Ryan Lewis are available from the website below. All requests for interview should be directed to Cathy Metcalfe at the details below
Ref: ml000102
16 July 2004
For media information: Cathy Metcalfe, MPR Associates, Tel: 01327 352199, Fax: 01327 352908
Mob: 07802 332398, E-mail: cathymetcalfe@mpr-associates.co.uk, www.ryanlewisracing.co.uk
|
