Long distance race

For the British Formula 3 teams preparation for the race in Bucharest meant a lot of stress. Last weekend they had a race in Silverstone, over 2600 kilometres away, and now - less than seven days later - they are ready for race in Bucharest.

"Last weekend we were a little lucky, because the organisation from Silverstone have scheduled the two races on Saturday", said Walter Grubmüller, Formula 3 driver from Austria. "That gave us one more day to come to Bucharest."

Grubmüller's team Hitech Racing have decided to drive directly from Silverstone to Romania. "Fortunately, my team-mate Max Chilton and I did not crash at Silverstone, so it was not necessary to visit the workshop."

Austrian Walter Grubmüller has bad memories of the Bucharest race in 2007: "In first qualifying my tyres were not warmed up perfectly and I was too fast in the first corner. I went straight into the wall." The 19-year-old driver suffered a concussion. "But I have forgotten it, this crash is no problem for me. I know that I made a mistake. This year I will try not to make it a second time."  

In contrast to Grubmüller's team Hitech, British team Fortec stopped at the workshop on the way from Silverstone to Bucharest. They left Silverstone on Saturday evening and made a stop for 24 hours. "On Sunday night we started our trip to Bucharest from our home base, before that we have prepared our cars in the workshop. Normally it takes us three days to do it, but on this day we had some more people working for us. And we all worked very fast. Only for this reason we were able to do it quickly", explained Mick Kouros, team-manager of Daventry-based team Fortec.

Like Hitech they were also lucky not having had a crash at Silverstone. Both trucks, the one from Hitech und the one from Fortec arrived in the Romanian capital on Wednesday morning, right in time.