The Gers move into Pole Position (09/05/08)

After claiming a place in this year's UEFA Cup Final, leading Scottish Premier League side Glasgow Rangers now have their sights set on major success in an entirely new sport - Superleague Formula.

The Glasgow club's entry into the new motor racing championship that features the colours of the world's leading football clubs was unveiled by members of the coaching and first team staff at Ibrox Stadium.

With 51 titles already to their credit (a world record), Rangers have now reached their first European final since 1972 - beating Italian club Fiorentina 4-2 on penalties - and The Light Blues will now play Russian side Zenit St Petersburg in the UEFA Cup Final in Manchester on May 14.

In what will be a huge seven days for the Club, today's launch for the media was followed by an unveiling of the car for the supporters at Ibrox Stadium the following night when the Rangers fans welcomed home their UEFA Cup heroes.

Rangers Chief Executive Martin Bain commented: We are delighted to be the sole Scottish representative in Superleague Formula and look forward to competing against some of the biggest names in football in this new sporting endeavour.

Rangers Football Club will benefit through sponsorship, television and spectator revenues while the project will help promote the Club throughout the world.

Rangers Captain Barry Ferguson added: Rangers Football Club is built on success and we all hope our car will be in pole position come the first race of the season at Donington Park. We were the first team in the UK to sign up for Superleague Formula and all the players will be following the car's progress throughout the racing calendar.

Rangers striker Nacho Novo commented: Many of the players at the Club are huge fans of motorsport so we will all be cheering on the Rangers Superleague Formula when the season begins in August. Our supporters are very passionate about their Club and I am sure they will get right behind our new racing team as well.

Rangers will be one of 20 leading clubs on the grid when the championship kicks off in the UK at Donington Park near Nottingham on August 30/31.

Their rivals will include European clubs AC Milan, PSV Eindhoven, FC Porto, Olympiacos, Borussia Dortmund, FC Basel, RSC Anderlecht, Sevilla and Galatasaray SK, plus Brazilian rivals Flamengo and Corinthians.

Mixed fortunes at Jarama for Team West-Tec (06/05/08)

Legris: Young Briton Jonathan Legris stunned on his Spanish F3 debut at the Jarama track. Legris driving an older Dallara F300 chassis, produced amazing pace, running consistently in the top six overall.

Due to the large and competitive field a new qualifying system was put in place with even-numbered cars running for 20 minutes before odd-numbered entries got their own 20 minute session. Unfortunately, both groups had to contend with a number of yellow flag caution periods. Jonathan’s qualifying effort was gave him a good 15th place on the grid, even though he was convinced a spot further up was possible had he not been baulked on his two flying laps!

A good start to the first race of the weekend, saw him move strongly through the field to finish in a superb eighth position overall. In fact he was the first Team West-Tec car home, having managed to pass Christian Ebbesvik when the Norwegian was pushed wide by another car.

As well as the eighth overall, Jonathan was third in the Copa class, giving him a deserved podium first time out, despite racing against much newer, and potentially faster, Dallara F306 cars.

Starting in P8 for Sunday’s race, Jonathan was confident of a good result and made another great start, running sixth overall, dicing with the highly-rated Jaime Alguersuari in his new Dallara F308. Unfortunately for young Legris, a daring outbraking manoeuvre was repelled by the Spaniard who in the process, ran over Jonathan’s wing, removing half of it from the car.

Amazingly, Jonathan hung on and was able to modify his driving style so that he could still lap within 0.5 of a second of Alguarsuari. Inevitably, this did mean he had pressure from behind which became  somewhat frenetic. Unfortunately for the whole team, Jonathan was involved in a collision with team mate Ebbesvik who had just passed another car and was tagged just before he tried to outbrake Legris

While this was a very disappointing, end to the race for  both West-Tec drivers who had been set for podium finishes, notice was nonetheless served that Jonathan is going to be a force to reckoned with in Formula 3, as he earned rave reviews in the paddock and on the live TV feed.

Ebbesvik: Reigning Spanish Copa de Espana Formula 3 Champion Ebbesvik left Jarama with just one championship point to show for a difficult weekend.

Major fuel injection problems which took most of Thursday and  Friday’s, testing to resolve left him significantly behind on set up work, something he was never quite able to clawback over the remainder of the weekend. With his 20 minute qualifying session interrupted by 12 minutes of yellow flags Christian felt he never got a clear lap and was down in an unrepresentative13th, albeit as the leading driver from the four car West-Tec outfit.

In race one, Christian moved up well and looked well set to break into the top six before being tapped by a rival driver which led to him running wide and eventually finishing a not totally disastrous ninth.

With more analysis and set-up work overnight, Christian was confident of doing better for Sunday’s race and was in eighth position and looking good after lap one. With teammate, Jonathan Legris losing half of his front wing against Jaime Alguersuari's car, Christian became bottled up in the queue behind as Jonathan fought to hold on, despite his predicament.

Christian eventually managed to pass the car between them and whilst overtaking Jonathan, the other car fought back and touched the rear of Christian’s car. Unfortunately, Christian then clattered into Jonathan’s car taking them both out of the race, much to the disappointment of Team West-Tec.

Waters: Despite heading to Madrid with high hopes, Alex Waters ultimately endured a difficult weekend on his debut in Spanish F3 after two crash-filled and eventful races. Alex was one of the drivers whose qualifying was compromised, ending up 15th on the grid, but in close company with his teammates.

Race one was proceeding well with Alex moving up to the fringes of the top ten before a clash with a rival left him off track and in the gravel. Although he did well to keep the engine running and recover, Alex was forced to retire to the pits with damage to the front of his car.

Finishing in the first race of the weekend is vital, as non-finishers must start race two from the rear of the field. So, Alex lined up for the second race, on Sunday at the back and was lucky to avoid a huge shunt between two adjacent cars. After the resultant safety car period, Alex was looking very racy, with a good chance to move up. Sadly, he was squeezed by another driver and his steering was damaged which left the car difficult to drive and down on performance. Nonetheless Alex soldiered on to a creditable 15th place finish.

Villar: Francisco Villar produced two very promising drives at Jarama being unlucky not to score points in the Copa de Espana. Through no fault of his own, Francisco’s car was plagued by unreliability throughout testing, the problems finally resolved with a full rear-end change. As a result Francisco got too little track time, but still managed to qualify 24th out of 30, and second quickest of the older Dallara F300s.

Starting back there was always going to make Francisco's race one difficult although he did a stellar job to pass cars as he progressed to a quality 15th place finish, setting the 11th fastest race lap in the process. In fact he was only just over ten seconds behind the seventh placed car of regular frontrunner German Sanchez, which shows just how close the race was.

This meant that Francisco would start Sunday's race two much higher up the grid and with genuine ambition to move up into the top ten. Sadly, it all went wrong at the first corner where Francisco had to slow to avoid a spinning car in front of him and he was slammed from behind, braking his rear wing.

Although Francisco managed to return to the pits and the team were able to change the whole rear wing assembly and still keep him on the lead lap, he was just too far behind as the race restarted although he clung on to finish in a respectable 16th position.

Quotes:

John Miller, Team Principal: Jonathan produced a special performance. If he had been able to qualify better he would have been even further up but to see him beating many good drivers in new Dallara F308s was amazing and to see him having the pace to try passing race one winner Alguersuari was almost beyond belief.

Gavin Wills, Team Principal: It was a great shame for the whole team the way race two worked out but Jonathan did a stunning job nevertheless and to see him on the podium on Saturday was amazing.

Jesus Pareja, Championship Director: To see a driver in an F300 racing in a competitive sixth place was fantastic. To see him doing it with only half a front wing on the car was just unbelievable!

Jonathan Legris: I was having a great weekend, until it all got spoiled on Sunday. Saturday was good though and I know the pace is in the car to get good results with it.

Christian Ebbesvik: We should have been able to do much better than we did and what happened in race two was very unfortunate. We will bounce back though and hopefully be on top form when we get to Spa.

John Miller, Team Principal: We were obviously expecting Christian to leave Jarama with more than one point. However, last year we started the year badly and he still came back to win the Copa de Espana at the last race, so we are certainly not giving up yet!

Alex Waters: Clearly these weren’t the results we were looking for, although I don’t think I really had much chance to do otherwise. Being involved in collisions in both races, although minor, ruined any 
chance of good results which is very frustrating. I am sure we will do better at Spa next time out though.

Gavin Wills, Team Principal: Alex certainly deserved better than he got, but unfortunately that?s racing. He did drive well in both races to try to overcome his lower than expected qualifying position, but luck certainly didn?t seem to be with him.

Francisco Villar: The weekend improved as it went on and I enjoyed  some good racing. Although the team did a great job with the wing, losing it on the first place cost me a good result.

Roger Parkes, Car Manager: Francisco drove very well, and recorded good lap times in both races. It was a great shame about the wing as  he did a good job to get the car back and the crew did an equally good  job to get it changed very quickly. If the safety car had lasted just  one more lap he would have caught right up, and with hot tyres - but it wasn’t to be. I’m sure we will see more from Francisco when we get to Spa as his performance was actually very creditable in the circumstances.

The Spanish F3 Championships continue at Spa, the home of the Belgian Grand Prix, at the end of May.