Strong start for Carlin in GP3

08 May 2010

Carlin made a promising start in the inaugural weekend of GP3 today, with a strong showing from all three of the team's drivers in the first ever qualifying session. Josef Newgarden was the lead Carlin driver for the majority of the session, but it was Dean Smith who got the most out of the drying track to qualify sixth. Newgarden meanwhile was 11th with Lucas Foresti in 14th place.

Torrential rain over night and early this morning meant track conditions had changed considerably since yesterday afternoon's dry practice session. Despite all GP3 cars running on wet tyres for the duration of this morning's qualifying session, it was clear that the last car to cross the line would be the favourite for pole due to the quickly drying track.

As the first ever qualifying session got underway, all Carlin cars looked strong and with 10 minutes gone Foresti was 8th, with Newgarden 9th and Smith 10th. The quickly drying track conditions meant the times continued to tumble and with three minutes to go the session really came to a head. Newgarden was P2 with just over a minute and a half remaining, while Smith was P5. Foresti meanwhile catapulted up the order from P20 to P10 on his last lap.

With Smith and Newgarden on their final flying laps, the Carlin team had two contenders for pole. Newgarden went quicker than anyone in his first sector, but a small mistake in the middle sector put him out of contention. Smith meanwhile was also on the pace and as he crossed the line with no time left on the clock was provisional pole. It was track conditions that counted though, with five cars behind him benefiting from the drying circuit and going quicker. After all cars had finished their flying laps all three Carlin cars were in the top 14, with Smith 6th, Newgarden 11th and Foresti 14th.

Speaking about his qualifying session, Smith said, "This is a very good start to the season, but I know if we'd been half a lap further back we would have been quickest as we were on the pace the whole session. I'm really confident though, there are a few changes we can make, but we've got a good car. I'd like to thank the team, Tomax and the Racing Steps Foundation for this opportunity; it's great not only to be here, but to be in a strong position from the outset."

Trevor Carlin added, "Qualifying was a bit of an unknown quantity for all the teams this morning and the track conditions only added to that. I'm very impressed by the way all three drivers handled themselves; they did a great job and absolutely no damage to the cars, while other drivers went off track. We've got all three cars on the top half of the grid, which is a great start to the season and all three of the drivers have a lot of potential ahead of the two races this weekend."

The Carlin drivers will be back in action for the first race of the season at 17.20 local time.