This year, young French hope Arthur Rogeon is having his first taste of single-seaters in Great Britain and Europe in the context of the GB3 championship. The 5th round took place at the end of July at Silverstone, a circuit on which the driver from Mayenne had clinched his first podium finish during the second meeting in May. He intended to capitalise on this experience to take another step forward in his progress, but that’s not how things turned out - much to the surprise of Arthur himself!
Lack of luck? Of success? Unlucky coincidence? Sheer hazard? Imponderables? Vicissitude of life as a driver? Maybe a combination of these at once! So, let's start from the beginning. One of the advantages of the GB3 Championship is that it offers substantial testing time before the races themselves. On Thursday, Arthur installed himself in the Top 10 in sessions 2 and 3 finishing the latter in a promising eighth place! On Friday, it was time to test himself on new tyres and in qualifying configuration. Unfortunately, no sooner had he set off when his car stopped!
Without this essential rehearsal, the qualifying session turned into a nightmare and the first two races of the weekend were severely compromised. “I tried to do my best, to find the limit, but I was one second off pole. As the overall level of the championship is very tight, this corresponded to 17th place on the starting grid. In race 1, I wasn’t very happy with myself. I think I came into the corners too early and I finished 16th so mea culpa. I learned the lessons for race 2 by making a big effort to be cleaner and I was able to move up to 13th place. The problem was that I started on used rubber, while most of my opponents shod their second set of new tyres. A real pity because I had the potential to break into the Top 10!
Indeed, the arrival of rain on Sunday was widely anticipated by the vast majority of paddock strategists. But Chris Dittmann Racing made the opposite bet by choosing to reserve Arthur's last set of new slick tyres for race 3. It was true that the reversed grid offered the Frenchman a privileged place at the start. And sometimes, it's by being disruptive that you pull off the best poker moves and break the bank!
But this time, the team’s audacity did not pay off. It rained so heavily at Silverstone on this Sunday 30th July that after a few laps behind the safety car, race control made the wise decision to cancel the race. Thus, even the weather frowned on Arthur forcing him to drink the chalice to the bitter dregs. Under more clement skies, he would very probably have fought for a third podium in this accursed race 3!
So the only thing to do today is look forward to holidays en famille and to the next sporting jousts. A day’s testing is scheduled at Brands Hatch at the end of August before the sixth round also on the Kent circuit on 9-10 September. The GB3 championship will share the billing with the British GT Championship!
