The F3 FIA Championship ends its European season in the Netherlands. After these three races on this new track, there will be only the Austin round left to close the Championship.
For F3, this is the first season with back-to-back races and, fortunately, the trip from Spa to Zandvoort is not long, so the drivers had a bit of time to rest. In Juan Manuel’s case, the time has been dedicated to train in the simulator, as he knows that he needs to recover the difference with his rivals, that did not have to stop for several months as he was forced to do, and in very difficult circumstances.
Juan Manuel already drove on this track when he was in the German F4 by mid-August 2016 with the Prema Team and he finished ninth and fourth. Nevertheless, it was on the old version of this track, without the changes that the 45-year-old Italian engineer, Jarno Zaffelli’s team did, which affected many parts of the circuit, specially the bank of the first corner, the mythical “Tarzan” corner.
Juan Manuel’s will, passion and commitment to his own sporting career and to the ART Team mean that he has no rest and, except for the forced summer break, he has not stopped training either. Juan Manuel has spent many hours in the team’s simulator this year and that has brought a considering improvement to his performance, always conditioned by the lottery of Friday’s Qualifying sessions, that this year are crucial.
Juan Manuel is really looking forward to this weekend.
“Second race weekend in a row. I’m excited and happy because I like to have two GPs in a row, to continue and go still warm from one to the other. I’ve done quite a lot of simulator these last two weeks, so I feel really good at Zandvoort. I knew the track in 2016 in Formula 4, and I don’t really remember it that much physically, but the simulator helped me to get into the rhythm again. Obviously there are major changes to the track that we don’t have in the simulator, as we did the old track, so it’s going to be a weekend of discovery in that sense, let’s see how it goes.”
“I’m super motivated, happy to go there, and the atmosphere is sure to be “cool” too. We hope to finally have a weekend where we can put everything together, have something positive and get results. For me the most important thing is to keep enjoying myself, keep learning, improving and going step by step. We’ll see how it goes, but I have a good feeling for this weekend”.
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Weekend Schedule
Friday, September 3
10:05-10:50 Free Practice 45 minutes
13:50-14:20 Qualifying 30 minutes
Saturday, September 4
10:35-11:15 Race 1 24 laps
17:55-18:35 Race 2 24 laps
Sunday, September 5
10:45-11:25 Race 3 24 laps
