Stanaway takes German F3 crown

Tauranga's Richie Stanaway has achieved what Michael Schumacher did at a similar stage of his motor racing career by winning the German Formula 3 title.

Stanaway, 19, clinched the German F3 crown at last weekend's penultimate round of the championship raced at the Assen TT circuit in The Netherlands.

Seven-time F1 world champion Schumacher won the German F3 title in 1990, a year before making his F1 debut. Among other German title winners are Formula 1 racers Jarno Trulli, Nick Heidfeld, Jos Verstappen and Pedro Lamy along with eight-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Tom Kristensen and McLaren F1 test driver Gary Paffett.

Stanaway had been on target to win the title during last weekend's racing but was actually confirmed as champion when Danish driver Marco Sorensen who was a distant second in the standings failed to appear.

"It was a strange feeling to go into the weekend realising we had wrapped up the championship without turning a wheel," said Stanaway.

"But that doesn't take anything away from it. We had dominated the championship and, with the points lead we had, winning the title was only a matter of time."

On Saturday at Assen Stanaway qualified second fastest for the opening race of the weekend with his team-mate Hannes Van Asseldonk taking pole position by a slim 0.13 second margin.

Rain early in the race required a pit stop to change to wet weather tyres and the race leader Van Asseldonk pitted first, leaving Richie disadvantaged on slicks in the wet. By the time his car was fitted with wets he was 40 seconds behind the leader and then recovered brilliantly and finished just 0.38 seconds behind race winner Klaus Bachler (Austria).

From pole position in race two Stanaway slipped to third place at turn one but regained the lead to win by 0.4 seconds from German driver Markus Pommer, extending his domination of the series with his 11th victory from 16 starts and also reaching the milestone of 50 wins since he began his car racing career in New Zealand Formula First in late 2007.

The German F3 crown is Stanaway's third motor racing title following on from his 2008-09 New Zealand Formula Ford Championship win and the 2010 Formel Masters title in Germany. And his success gave the Dutch Van Amersfoort Racing squad a home celebration with its fourth driver's title in the German series and its third in the last five years.

"It hasn't really sunk in yet because I've been focused on what might come next," said Stanaway.

"It looks like I will have a couple of World Series by Renault tests before the end of the year and hopefully I'll be going to Macau."

The annual Macau Grand Prix on November 17-20 is an end of season Formula 3 race on a demanding street circuit. It's a race that Schumacher won immediately after clinching the German F3 Championship.

"Going to Macau would mean a lot to me," said Stanaway.

"All the top Formula 3 drivers in the world will be there and it would be great to measure myself against them. It's really the unofficial world championship of Formula 3 with all the top drivers from the British, German, Euro and Japanese series racing there."

Before then the final round of the German Series is at Hockenheim on October 1-2 and this summer Stanaway is hopeful of spending some more time at home.

"It looks like I will be home in the first week of December and I will be able to stay for a bit longer. If I end up doing GP3 or World Series next year the testing is restricted and doesn't start till March."

Clear victoryA rallysprint victory near Waihi on Sunday allowed Tauranga driver Ben Thomasen a chance to overcome the disappointment of rolling out of the previous weekend's Gisborne Rally.

With some hurried repairs to his Subaru Impreza WRX Thomasen claimed a clear victory in the Golden Cross tarmac rallysprint at Golden Cross Rd and Waitekauri Rd.

The event, which is jointly organised by Motorsport BOP and the Thames Valley Car Club, attracted 32 drivers and was held in some heavy rain, a brief hail storm and was delayed several times by incidents.

"It was treacherous and quite a few cars went off the road," said Thomasen. "On one run it would raining at the top of the course and fine at the bottom and the next run it would be the opposite. It was really slippery with pine needles on the road in places and some very narrow sections with one-lane bridges."

"The handling of my car wasn't ideal and I was only able to drive at about 85 to 90 per cent but it was good to put the memory of Gisborne behind me. It might have been my last event for this season and I didn't want the year to end the way it did at Gisborne. So we worked all Saturday and Saturday night to replace the two bent lower arms and the tie rod end to get the car going again."

Thomasen's first run through the 7.7km course was the fastest of the day clocking 3m 54.53s and as the road became increasingly slippery the times slowed. He was the overall winner by nearly 15.5secs from Te Aroha's Graham Featherstone (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo3) with Thames Valley Car Club competitors Alan Fretwell (Subaru Legacy RS) and Carl Davies (Mitsubishi Galant) in third and fourth place respectively.

Tauranga's Phil Campbell was seventh and was the leading two-wheel drive competitor in his Mitsubishi Mirage V6 beating Aucklander Carol Liston (Honda CRX) by just over 2secs.

The Golden Cross Rallysprint was the penultimate round of the 2011 Motorsport BOP club points series. The final event for local competitors is the Rotorua Car Club gravel hillclimb at Manawahe Rd on October 30.

Golden Cross Rallysprint - results:

1 Ben Thomasen (Subaru Impreza WRX) 15m 15.11s; 2 Graham Featherstone (Mitsubishi Lancer Evo3) 16m 05.61s; 3 Alan Fretwell (Subaru Legacy RS) 16m 19.11s; 4 Carl Davies (Mitsubishi Galant) 16m 35.14s; 5 John Murphy (Subaru Impreza WRX) 17m 09.95s; 6 James De La Haye (Subaru Impreza WRX) 17m 11.33s; 7 Phil Campbell (Mitsubishi Mirage V6) 17m 19.04s; 8 Carol Liston (Honda CRX) 17m 21.38s; 9 Derek Cecil (BMW M3 Evo) 17m 23.33s; 10 Simon Clark (BMW 330i) 17m 24.39s.