30 July 2024 – Press release Arthur Rogeon
GB3 Championship, round 6, Silverstone, 27 – 28 July 2024
Arthur Rogeon scored his second victory in the GB3 Championship on the marvellous Silverstone circuit! The weekend was not perfect for the French driver and his English team, but when the opportunity to win presented itself it had to be grasped with both hands. And it was! This new uncontested victory arrived at just the right time to boost the morale of the troops before the summer break!
Finally, it took only five weeks for the Marseillaise to ring out again at a GB3 podium ceremony. On his second visit of the season to Silverstone, Arthur put on a good showing in free practice with times slotting him in between 5th and 7th places on three occasions. He would have been in the same bracket in qualifying, had he not had an off-course excursion exceeding track limits.
Thus, he started Race 1 in 11th position and made the right choices in the opening skirmishes to snatch 8th place. But on the restart after the safety car intervention, he realised that the setting options chosen for his car did not allow him to maintain enough speed and he slipped back to 12th place at the chequered flag.
In a dry GB3 event, the management strategy for the two sets of tyres allowed is decided based on the qualifying results. In Arthur’s case (10th on the grid for race 2) the team preferred to keep the ideal performance potential for race 3 due to the reversal of the grid positions of the Top 12. Despite tyres that were well worn by the demands made on them during qualifying and race 1, the driver from Laval and his car put on a pretty good performance as indicated by the 6th theoretical time (statistics obtained by adding the best intermediate times of each driver: Editor’s note) and he crossed the finishing line 11th place.
Now, let Arthur tell us how he added a second victory to his burgeoning motorsport laurels. “The behavior of my car in race 2 gave me confidence for race 3. I was 2nd on the grid but I managed to take the inside line in Copse corner next to my neighbour on the front row, whom I was able to out-accelerate to snatch the lead as we raced into the Maggots – Becketts – Chapel complex. I was ahead in the first two sectors and then the safety car was deployed. I made a very good restart and I protected myself from an attack without really opening up a gap early on, but then I upped the pace while my pursuer was losing time. I started to pull away by 3 or 4 tenths of a second per lap, so I was able to control my lead from halfway through the race. I’m happy to offer this victory to my team, my family and my partners. We’ve never given up and we’ll try to make further progress to finish the season on a high note!”
The penultimate round of the GB3 Championship will be held at Donington Park on 7-8 September!
Photo by JEP/DomGibbons