Tough start to Italian F3 Championship

Dino Zamparelli endured a frustrating debut weekend for rounds 1 & 2 of the Italian F3 Championship at the Misano circuit in Italy. Having only completed two test days prior to the first race weekend, Zamparelli was cautious to keep his expectations grounded. Whatever the final result, there would be positives to take away.

For qualifying, the torrential rain produced an extremely wet circuit. Suffering from brake problems for the first half of the session, the MSA AASE student was then hit by another car on the rear, seriously upsetting the balance of the car.

“My right front wheel was locking up horrifically for the first half a session. In the wet, this is a serious problem. I was braking earlier than everyone else and whilst they out-braked me into the corner, I would lock the front wheels up!”

“In addition, whilst I was working my way through traffic, I was hit on the left rear and although I carried on, the car then was horribly unbalanced.”

This meant that Zamparelli could only post a lap time worthy of 27th position, some 5 seconds off the pace. The team worked hard to get the car ready and made a few changes ready for race one.

Race 1: (Finished 20th)
Coming to the end of the green flag lap, just as Zamparelli stopped the car in the grid slot and checked his mirrors to see those behind him still rolling into position, the start lights flashed on and then off again. Expecting the rear of the grid to come to a complete stop before the start, the 17 year old from Bristol was caught unawares and fell back to last place having not realised the speed of the lights.

He said, “As soon as I pulled up to my grid spot, one second later the lights went out for the start of the race! I thought they had made a mistake because the guy behind me was still rolling. It is all experience and I won’t be caught again.”

Falling back to 30th but undeterred, Zamparelli, with the balance of his Corbetta Competizioni run F3 Dallara back, made a charge through the field and ended up 20th by the end of the race. With a few more laps, Zamparelli was sure of overtaking more.

“It was a really enjoyable race. It was hard, but it was good. I learnt a lot from that race and managed to climb up the running order. The gap to 19th was too big for the number of laps left in the race. However I pushed all the way to the flag and if we could have had a few more laps Ithink a top 16 finish would have been possible.”

Race 2: (Finished 20th)
For race 2 on Sunday, the weather changed to sunny and hot throughout the day. However a sequence of unfortunate events started to unfold for the 17 year old BRDC Rising Star.

Dino explains, “The normal procedure is to leave the pits and line up on the grid. You can however go through the pit lane once and do an extra lap to see the track conditions. We thought this to be beneficial seeing as I had never been on the track in the dry.”

“So, I went out, came back in through the pits and had to stop at the end of the pit lane as there were a lot of people trying practice starts. I had to stop and start two or three times and eventually when I went to put the clutch in, it wasn’t engaging. The engine stalled and wouldn’t restart.”

“To make matters worse, the car wouldn’t get going again as the clutch was now not working at all. We started up the engine and then put it in gear, but of course it would stall because the clutch did not disengage. This led to the team having to jump start me from the pit lane, which fortunately worked.”

With over 10 seconds to make up after lap one, Zamparelli found it hard to make any impression on closing the field up in front.

“Initially, my pace was surprisingly slow on some of the corners. I was getting much quicker every lap but it just wasn’t enough. The lack of testing really showed up in the dry – when it was wet we had the car setup more in line with my driving style and so I was able to drive more at the limit than in the dry. Looking at the lap times, I was constantly 2 seconds per lap faster on my last 5 laps than on my first five, despite the tyres becoming more worn and losing grip. Overall, as it's my first race in the dry in a F3 car - I guess it's acceptable."

Zamparelli takes positives away from the weekend
Dino Zamparelli was not too disappointed with the weekend’s results despite clearly wanting more from his first F3 start. The BRDC Rising Star is confident that with more test days under his belt, he will be fighting for more points.

“Everyone wants to dominate from the start, me included. However realistically that was unlikely with the limited running. We have developed the car more this weekend and with some further testing we will be able to fine tune the car to my driving style.”

“I have learnt a lot from this weekend and it gives us an indication of where we are and where we need to be. There is a lot of work to be done before the next round in Germany, and Corbetta Competizioni and I are fully focused on what we need to do.”

“Everyone says 'I want to thank the team', however, seriously I really do want to say a big thank you to the team, Corbetta Competizioni, and everyone who has been involved in getting me here this weekend. Without them it would not have been possible.”

Click here to download the full race results

Rounds 3 & 4 of the Italian F3 Championship takes place at Hockenheim on 13th June 2010