19 August 2004 (tho/wai)

14th Marlboro Masters, Circuit Park Zandvoort, The Netherlands
August 6th/8th 2004
by Stella-Maria Thomas and Lynne Waite

Race:
In some ways the 14th running of the Marlboro Masters of Formula Three was more predictable than was necessary. Basically, as it turned out, no one was capable of taking the fight to the ASM Formule 3 team, and their all-conquering Mercedes engines. At least, that was how it looked on paper. In reality it wasn't quite that simple. But then, these things never are. After a visit from Dutch royalty, and in temperatures that had soared into the 30s as the afternoon came around, it wasn't going to be easy for any of the 37 competitors who had qualified to start the race. The start was earlier than in previous years because the TV Company that was broadcasting the race live was also carrying the DTM race from Oschersleben. The result was a 1pm start because we needed to be out of the way before that.
After a relatively incident-free weekend to this point it was perhaps inevitable that there would be trouble in the race. Usually it happens at Tarzan, the huge right-hander that the gaggle of drivers has to negotiate almost immediately after they set off from the grid. In fact they all got through Tarzan, Eric Salignon getting the drop on pole man Alexandre Premat as both ASM cars screamed away from the pack. Behind them James Rossiter (Fortec Motorsport) was just ahead of Adam Carroll (P1 Motorsport), while Lucas di Grassi (Hitech Racing) was holding off Nico Rosberg (Team Rosberg) for 5th. Further back, however, there was trouble, with Fairuz Fauzy (P1 Motorsport), the Malaysian covering himself in sand rather than glory at Hugenholtz, and finishing his race there and then. Additionally, we lost Ferdinand Kool (Alan Docking Racing), who was hit by Marcus Marshall (Fortec Motorsport), presumably because the Australian was trying not to get collected in Fauzy's off.
Fauzy was able to walk away, while Marshall drove on. Kool wasn't so lucky and a rescue crew had to be mobilized to extract him from the car, under cover of large ominous looking sheets. The rescue took a while, and the Safety Car was immediately scrambled to lead the pack round while the marshals and doctors saw to the injured driver. Unfortunately, it might have been scrambled immediately, but it seemed to be having some difficulties picking up the leader. Eventually it settled in just in front of Salignon, and everyone was forcibly slowed down.
For three laps, they trailed round trying to keep the heat in their tyres, and not let the engines get too much heat. Salignon led, from Prémat, Rossiter, Carroll, di Grassi and Rosberg. In 7th was Nelson A Piquet (Piquet Sports), with Nicolas Lapierre (Opel Signature Plus), Jamie Green (ASM Formule 3), and Lewis Hamilton (Manor Motorsport) rounding out the top ten.
Behind them were Franck Perera (Prema Powerteam), highest-placed Dutchman Charles Zwolsman (Manor Motorsport), a very determined Danny Watts in Promatecme F3's Lola-Dome, Marlboro-backed Giedo van der Garde (Opel Signature Plus), and Clivio Piccione, the highest-placed of the Carlin Motorsport boys, in 15th place (a bit of an odd let-down after the glory days of Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson). To be fair to Piccione, he was now four places further up than he had been on the grid, so he was doing what he could. In 16th was Loïc Duval (Opel Signature), Daniel la Rosa (ASL-Team Mücke Motorsport), Roberto Streit (Prema Powerteam), Marko Asmer (Hitech Racing) and Adrian Sutil (Team Kolles). In 21st, Alvaro Parente (Carlin Motorsport) was ahead of Alexandros Margaritis (Vitaphone Racing Team AB Racing), Danilo Dirani (Carlin Motorsport), Andrea Zuber (Team Rosberg) and Maximilian Götz (TME Racing). James Walker (Hitech Racing) was 26th despite having started last, from Hannes Neuhauser (HBR Motorsport), Katsuyuki Hiranaka (Prema Powerteam), Marshall and Franchi, while the final handful of places were occupied by Ross Zwolsman (HBR Motorsport) in pursuit of his brother, Bruno Spengler (ASL-Team Mücke Motorsport) who had totally messed up his start, Andrew Thompson (Hitech Racing) who'd also made a bit of a hash of it, and Tom Kimber-Smith (Team Kolles), the latter sporting fetchingly flapping end-plate decals. And so they stayed until the end of lap four, the only exception being Zuber who managed to end up right at the back after a quick trip into the pits.
Needless to say, having been behind the Safety Car almost from the start, there was bound to be trouble at the restart. And so it proved. As the Safety Car pulled off and left them to it, Lapierre skidded off into the nearest available gravel, dropping several places in the process. While he was doing that, Green was sizing up Piquet. The Euro F3 series leader made his move on the British series leader as they reached the Audi bend, and made it stick. Having seen that happen, Hamilton decided he wanted some of that too. By the time the lap was over Piquet had lost two places, and he wasn't exactly pleased about it. He wasn't about to take it lying down mind. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was fall back into Perera's clutches. Luckily Perera was having a bit of trouble himself because he had the Manor car of Charles Zwolsman behind him, and the prospect of Watts if Zwolsman couldn't hold the Englishman off.
Further down the order, Piccione was having fun with van der Garde, who seemed very determined not to let the Monegasque through, despite the fact that Clivio was clearly in the quicker car. It made for good TV coverage for Piccione, which was just as well given how frustrated it was also making him. His teammate Dirani was also having trouble, in his case with Margaritis, who was proving very hard to pass, driving a very wide Dallara. He finally got the better of the Greek at Tarzan, while Carroll savaged Rossiter and took his 3rd place away in a cracking move. Sadly for the spectators Carroll had no chance of catching Salignon or Premat, the two of them simply motoring away as if they were out for a drive in the country. It looked far more relaxed than it probably was! For Carroll, the rest of the race was pretty lonely, as it was for Rossiter. By the time the race was a third over Salignon had a two and a half second lead over Premat, and was pushing to try and keep it that way, fully expecting his own tyres to go off slightly before those of his chasing team-mate.
However, if you were looking for excitement, you had to look a lot further back. Watts was looking for a way round Zwolsman so he could have a go at Perera. Margaritis, having lost track of Dirani, was under attack from Götz, and Hiranaka had taken Neuhauser, and was now after Walker, who was in trouble. Götz it was who seemed deeply determined get Margaritis, to the point of running into the rear of the Greek's car at Tarzan, presumably just to underline the fact that he was there. It worked; a lap later he was through. Watts, meanwhile, had finally dealt with Zwolsman and was now setting about Perera, while elsewhere Hamilton was looking for a way round Green and not finding it, at least not yet. Just for good measure, Asmer, the Estonian in full-scale terrier mode, was savaging Streit, for all the good it was doing him. He wouldn't find a way though, but he seemed to be having fun anyway.
At the half distance point Parente went missing, though he didn't seem too distressed about it afterwards, shrugging and saying that from where he was running, crashing out seemed a better option. At least it gave him something to talk about… And at the same time one of the Carlin boys ended his race, Piccione pulled a great move on van der Garde, edging up the inside of the local hero at Tarzan and coming out ahead. His next target was Lapierre, a much harder nut to crack. Meanwhile Watts was having a very tough time with Perera, to the point where the officials showed the French youngster the driving standards flag to warn him that they didn't much like his tactics. It might have been the excessively wide Dallara he seemed to be in charge of, but more likely it was the rather vicious defence move he pulled on the main straight, almost putting Watts in the pit wall. Watts' response was to give the Prema driver a hefty smack up the rear into Tarzan, and then lap later to finally drive past him and into 10th place. From there he simply left Perera in the dust, setting off after Piquet, only to find himself chasing down Green instead, when Green got it all wrong and fell right back. Piccione, meanwhile, lost out when he tried to pass Lapierre. The move didn't quite come off, sending Lapierre off into the gravel terminally, while Clivio, with his visor slightly up to let air in, found himself with a face full of grit and sand instead. Unable to see or breathe properly he promptly fell back to 19th, losing all the ground he'd made up. It was all a bit harsh really.
Elsewhere Margaritis had come to a grinding halt as he tried to take on Walker, and was getting the door firmly slammed in his face whenever he tried anything at all, while Götz was battling with Thompson, a fight that went sour in the last few laps of the race, taking both of them out almost within sight of the chequered flag. In addition to all that, the trio of Zuber, Ross Zwolsman and Kimber-Smith were trying hard to prove that you can get three cars abreast into Tarzan and still have all three of them come out again. It seemed a lot of effort for 21st place, but then again, they seemed to be having fun, and they were certainly entertaining the 45,500 strong crowd. At least they were still trying…
With four laps to go, the only question now was how big a margin Salignon looked likely to win by. It certainly wasn't going to be by much because Premat was now hunting him down, apparently in possession of better tyres than his team-mate. All eyes turned to watch the two of them cross the line again, only for a stunned silence to settle on the spectators. It was Premat who arrived first, Salignon having made an elementary mistake (by his own admission) and spun out of the lead, in the Marlboro corner of all places. By the time he got going, Premat was through and into a somewhat surprised lead with four laps to go. It was frankly unbelievable. Afterwards, the blond Frenchman was graceful in defeat, but he would clearly have sleepless nights over this for some time to come. Granted many people's tyres were starting to go off, and there were some very peculiar lines being taken, to say nothing of some very odd braking points being used. Even so, no one could have expected that Salignon would lose everything he'd worked all weekend for, and have to settle for 2nd, ahead of a jubilant Carroll, who couldn't quite believe he'd made it onto the podium when he hadn't even known if he'd be racing till the middle of the week.
Charles Zwolsman was another to come a cropper towards the end, taking a long slow trip through the Tarzan gravel and losing somewhere in the region of 10 places before he was able to rejoin. It wasn't pretty and it certainly wasn't too clever, but he was still ahead of his brother at least! Just to stop him feeling lonely, Green also went off, losing out to Hamilton and Piquet and coming very close to losing a place to Watts, who gave him a little tap just to see if it would work as it had with Perera.
And so a less than classic, but nonetheless quietly interesting, Masters came to an end, with Premat and Salignon dominating the proceedings. Carroll was 3rd, from a somewhat distant and disappointed Rossiter, while di Grassi held off Rosberg, Hamilton and Piquet to claim 5th. Green was just ahead of Watts at the flag, the two of the taking the last two top ten slots. Perera was 11th and lucky not to be excluded, while la Rosa was 12th, from van der Garde and Duval. The battling pair of Streit and Asmer took 15th and 16th places, while Dirani was 17th from Charles Zwolsman, a very sandy Piccione and Sutil. Margaritis finished 21st, ahead of a strangely lacklustre Hiranaka, Neuhauser, Marshall (who had done well to survive the first lap fracas), Zuber, Ross Zwolsman, Kimber-Smith, Walker, Franchi and Spengler. The fastest lap was some consolation to Salignon, as was the fact that the French team (he and Premat), perhaps unsurprisingly, won the Nations' Cup.