Vergne extends championship lead in Hockenheim

Carlin's Jean-Eric Vergne extended his lead in the 2010 Cooper Tires British F3 Series today, with a flawless lights to flag victory in Hockenheim. Vergne was once again joined on the podium by Jazeman Jaafar who took third place, just ahead of team mate Adriano Buzaid in fourth. James Calado put in the drive of the race to go from 12th on the grid to sixth, while Rupert Svendsen-Cook was eighth and Lucas Foresti finished ninth - meaning all six Carlin cars finished inside the top ten.

Jean-Eric Vergne (FRA) Carlin Dallara Volkswagen Credit: British F3

Lining up on pole for the second time this weekend, Vergne made a great start to lead the field away. Buzaid made another great getaway; the Brazilian catapulted into second place from his third placed grid slot and nearly managed to pass leader Vergne into the first corner.

Behind the two leaders, there was a multi-car squabble, with Jaafar in the middle of the pack fighting with Dasiuke Nakajima, Gabriel Dias and team mate Svendsen-Cook. Jaafar did well to come out of the melee in fifth place. Svendsen-Cook also made the most of the chaos at the start and had made up two places in seventh. James Calado meanwhile was 11th with Foresti in 13th place.

Despite his lightning start, Buzaid found himself under attack from William Buller, with the pair almost touching on lap two. Buzaid did well to avoid a collision but dropped to third place. Continuing his recent run of good form, Jaafar was on a charge on lap five and was closing in on race two winner Dias. The young Malaysian made a fantastic move at the hairpin to take the inside line and move up to fourth place.

By lap nine, Buzaid had started to carve into Buller's advantage and clearly wanted to regain his second place. As Buzaid closed in, he brought team mate Jaafar with him, with the fight for second place now looking like a three way battle. On lap 12, Buzaid locked brakes, giving Jaafar a sniff of third place, with the duo going side by side for several corners in one of the most exciting battles of the race. Jaafar finally managed to make his way though which left Buzaid having to defend from fourth place man Dias.

Calado meanwhile was fighting his own battle with Huertas, the Racing Steps driver found a way through on lap 10 to move up to ninth place and saw his progress helped further on lap 13 when Daniel McKenzie was handed a drive through. Calado then passed team mate Svendsen-Cook to put him seventh. Foresti was also benefiting from other people's drive-through's and was up to tenth place with 10 laps still to go. Calado proved to be the man to watch as the race entered the final stages, putting Nakajima under pressure by lap 17. The British racer made a move stick on lap 18 and moved up to sixth place with his sight now set on fifth place man Dias. By lap 21, Calado had got the gap down to just half a second but couldn't find a way through. Foresti made up one final place on the final lap when Huertas moved down the order to cross the line in ninth place. While his team mates had provided some of the most exciting overtaking manoeuvres of the race, Vergne was in a race of his own at the front and crossed the line to take his fifth victory of the season by over 16 seconds.

Championship leader Vergne said, "It was like a 40 minute qualifying session for me. I was just pushing hard and I was just focusing on the race lap by lap. The car was just amazing; it was a really nice race for me. I have to say a big thanks to the team, because after Magny Cours I was feeling really bad, really upset and angry and I wanted to come here and put things right. Now we have to push even harder to keep getting these results for the rest of the season."

A delighted Trevor Carlin added, "The entire team have worked so hard this weekend and the drivers have all put in great performances. I think six cars in the top nine speaks for itself. There's a big gap now before the next race, so we have to push really hard to make sure we move forwards as a team before the next round at Rockingham."

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