European F3 Open first date Report – Portimao, Portugal Tatiana Calderon scored her first point in the season of the Formula 3 European Open this weekend in the first round of the championship, which was fulfilled at the Autodromo International del Algarve in Portugal. A tenth place in the second race allowed Tatiana to open her marker, but at the time it was little reward for what was shown, both for her and for her team during practice of Thursday and Friday. An engine problem in the first race, which forced her withdrawal when she was running in the top, eventually compromising the weekend, as the team had to race against the clock to get the car ready for Sunday’s race. Her team Emilio de Villota captured two wins with Mexican Juan Carlos Sistos and Swedish Mans Grenhagen. This clearly showed the potential of Tatiana this year, while the balance is not as expected at this early date, which ranks Tatiana at 13 of the championship.
“I think we deserved more than the first championship point this weekend, after what we had shown in practice,” said Tatiana. “But that’s racing. The team is still not clear about what happened to the engine on Saturday, but it gave me a shock to see the flames in the mirror. I had to activate the extinguisher and fortunately nothing happened.
“In the second race I didn’t classify as expected, it seems that something went wrong with the tires because my teammate had the same problem and were run at a very similar pace and ended up ninth and tenth. “I turn the page with the lessons that remain, but right now we focus on the next date, knowing that we have the performance to be ahead.”
Summary Private and official practices – Thursday and Friday: The weekend started well for Tatiana with a third place in the first practice of the weekend on a wet track where the Emilio de Villota team cars dominated. On Friday, under similar conditions, Tatiana repeated the third place in the first official practice, then she was seventh and ninth in two workouts that were met with a dry track.
First Race – Saturday: During the qualifying race on Saturday the ninth fastest time was below the expected result as Tatiana did not complete a lap without traffic in the group of 26 participants. From the fifth row she took the departure of the first competition of the championship, remaining among the top 10, but with a noticeable lack of top speed. This is then manifested in terminal damage to the motor when she completed lap 10 of 16, which as determined by the team, was caused by an oil leak, which at the time of failure, left the car in flames for a few seconds, without consequences for Tatiana.
Second Race – Sunday: On a wet track the second qualifying session of the weekend was disputed, where Tatiana and her team hoped to confirm the good performance they had shown during practice on wet track. But she and her teammate Sistos winner on Saturday, failed to shine with new tires.
The race began with heavy rain and poor visibility due to the amount of water removed by the tires and cars at running speed. Because of this the competition began with a Safety Car, but it was difficult for Tatiana to make progress over tenth place in the extreme conditions, where the order changes were minimal. Tatiana passed the finish line in 10th place, behind teammate Sistos.
For more information visit the following links: http://www.f3open.net/ http://www.emiliodevillota.org/pages/motorsport Twitter: @TataCalde
