Felix Rosenqvist did not get the 2014 FIA Formula 3 European Championship campaign off to the start he was looking for, and leaves the season-opening round at Silverstone with a best result of seventh.
After finishing second overall in the 2013 standings, the Swede went into the new season aiming to once again feature at the top of the timesheets. However, it soon became apparent that a lack of performance would limit the Mücke Motorsport charge, forcing Rosenqvist (and new team-mate Lucas Auer) to start all three races from the middle of the 26-car field. Rosenqvist – a winner at the British Grand Prix venue 12 months ago – eventually managed to claw his way back to seventh in the final race of the weekend thanks to a series of around-the-outside overtaking moves.
“This has been a poor weekend for us; there’s no hiding from that,” says Felix Rosenqvist. “We simply haven’t had the pace we were hoping for, and we’re lacking quite a substantial amount of performance compared to the frontrunners at the moment. We were a little bit stronger after making some set-up changes for the final race, but we still obviously can’t be happy. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and we need to improve the situation quickly, but I’m confident we’ll be able to fight back. It’s still very early days in the season and we’ll do absolutely everything to turn this around sooner rather than later.”
Rosenqvist will now head straight to Portugal, where he is set to represent Team Sweden for the first-ever round of the new ACCELERATION FA1 series next weekend. The FIA Formula 3 European Championship, meanwhile, regroups at Hockenheim – where Rosenqvist holds the Formula 3 lap record – on May 2-4.
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