Tatiana Calderon participated this weekend in the penultimate round of the European F3 Open season in Monza, Italy, where despite having shown very good speed through out qualyfing and races, couldnt get the result she was looking for. Races were affected by difficult track conditions with the rain and some strategic decisions that did not worked out as expected.
In the three practice sessions that took place on Friday, Tatiana finished 9th overall and was running in 6th place in the second practice session. The team Emilio de Villota Motorsport and Tatiana were working on the car set up as Monza is a very fast track were you run as little downforce as possible which means you have to work on getting more mechanical grip and work on miximizing the brake performance of the car. All sessions on Friday were on a dry track.
The day began with Saturday’s qualifying session on a very wet track that was drying lap by lap. With the luck of grip on this wet conditions, Tatiana managed to be for much of the session in the top five and eventually would get the sixth fastest time, less than two tenths off the second place . this performance was not her best starting position of the year, all though this time the time difference was the closest she has ever been of pole, confirming her progress race by race.
The first race of the weekend was affected by heavy rain and a penalty that Tatiana had to complete after having to make repairs to her car on the grid just before the start of the race, this due to a spin on the formation lap. After compliting the drive through penalty, Tatiana was able to recover and gain several positions with the difficult conditions of visibility cause by torrential rain she manage to cross the finish line in 12th position.
Sunday started again with a wet track similar to Saturday’s qualyfing session. Emilio de Villota team choose different tire strategies for its 4 drivers, which did not gave them the results they were expecting. Starting in the 13th position, this time on a dry track, Tatiana began to move forward up until fighting for a position in Ascari saw her going off track.
The No. 7 car cross the line in 16th place, it was the most difficult race of the year for team so far, as none of their drivers managed to score points. Tatiana continues in 9th place overall in the drivers championship.
The next meeting for Tatiana will be next weekend, not in the European F3 Open, but in Formula Renault Alps at the Mugello circuit in Italy.
Tatiana says: “Once again we have shown that the speed is there, we couldnt get the results we wanted but this is part of the game. I’m happy with Saturday;s qualifying in which i thought I could have been even closer to the top but I made a couple of mistakes on my best lap. On Sunday, however,we had a very complicated qualyfing as I went off after 4 laps. Then in the race we had some good pace but again when fighting for a position I went off track , manage to finished the race but far behind”.
“We still have Barcelona left in our calendar, it will be like our home but before that I will be making two appearances in Formula Renault Alps to be more active in October, because the European F3 Open finale is until November. I’ll be with a new team in that category first in Mugello and then in Barcelona, those are races where I hope to learn a lot and test myself in a very competitive environment.”
For more information visit the following links: http://www.f3open.net/ http://www.emiliodevillota.org/pages/motorsport http://www.tatianacalderon.com Twitter: @TataCalde
