- Fortec Motorsport climb the championship tables at Silverstone
- Double pole and maiden victory for Joel Granfors in Northampton
- Swedish driver now takes the lead of the Drivers’ Championship
Joel Granfors scored a superb maiden victory for Fortec Motorsport at Silverstone last weekend (7-8 May) to move into the championship lead after a competitive second meeting of the 2022 GB3 Championship for the Daventry squad.
The team headed to the home of British motorsport looking to add to a victory at Oulton Park over the Easter weekend in the GB3 season opener, and it would be the team’s rookie driver Granfors who stepped up to the plate at the 3.66-mile GP circuit.
Fellow series newcomer Zak Taylor entered his second ever GB3 meeting hopeful of breaking into the top five after a promising finish at Oulton, with the team’s third driver Mikkel Grundtvig eyeing a second victory of the year after finishing with a win in the opening round in Cheshire.
Testing pace across Thursday and Friday looked impressive for the Fortec squad after showing promising speed across pre-season testing, and it would be Granfors who entered the weekend as the man to beat with the quickest times over the two days.
Fortec’s trio of Tatuus MSV-022 machines headed into Saturday morning’s qualifying session with the drivers looking confident of a strong start to the weekend. Swedish youngster Granfors lead the charge with a string of rapid laps in the early running, and a brace of laps midway through proceedings would be enough to grab pole position by 0.3s, backed up with race two pole thanks to his second fastest effort. Grundtvig and Taylor took 14th and 16th respectively.
A rapid start in race one that afternoon meant Granfors built up an early cushion of over two seconds on the opening tour of the first 10-lapper of the weekend, a lead he would never surrender as he managed his tyres on the way to a maiden victory by just under a second over the chasing Luke Browning.
Spurred on by the success, Fortec had a chance to double up with Granfors starting race two from pole position once more on Sunday. The lead was lost to Tom Lebbon on lap one, but Granfors kept up the pressure throughout to finish just one second back for his second podium of the weekend.
Taylor made up three spots in a feisty opening contest and backed that up with further gains in the second to finish 15th. Grundtvig meanwhile finished the opening two races in 15th and 13th respectively, but would start the reverse grid race from seventh on the grid, with Taylor charging from fifth and Granfors bringing up the rear.
Race three would be a bruising affair for two Fortec drivers, Taylor fighting strongly inside the top five before being eased off the track by a rival at the final corner. A charging Granfors meanwhile drove out of his skin to gain six places on lap one alone, climbing further spots to gain 11 places for a final finishing position of ninth. The off-road excursion dropped Taylor down to a very unrepresentative 16th, while Grundtvig also fell foul of an aggressive opening lap as he finished 15th.
A huge points haul for Granfors swung the points lead to his favour, now three points ahead while Fortec Motorsport gained ground to now sit second – just three points from the overall Teams’ Championship lead.
The team heads to Donington Park for the next three races of the 2022 GB3 Championship over the weekend of 28/29 May, a circuit which the team were victorious at last year.
Oliver Dutton, Team Manager said:
“What a great weekend it’s been for us, and particularly Joel who has really stepped up this season since graduating to GB3. His pace all week meant pole position looked possible, and to then pull it off and back that up with a brilliant win in race one was very mature of him. Zak and Mikkel were hindered after qualifying and were desperately unlucky in the last race after a few aggressive moves, but overall it’s been a great weekend to take the Drivers’ Championship lead and move further forward in the Teams Championship.”
21# Zak Taylor
“The team have been great again all weekend, and it’s just a big shame that it ended the way it did. Qualifying put us further back than we would have liked, but we had a good chance in the last race to fight for a podium and salvage a result. We’ll fight back next time out.”
#43 Mikkel Grundtvig
“In qualifying we tried a new strategy by putting more new tyres on in qualifying to achieve a better starting position, which was very close to working out as we were looking at a top 10 result. We got unlucky with traffic. Results-wise it was not what I wanted, but I feel I put a marker down to show that I can race well and not let people get by me. For me that makes it a positive from the weekend and the team have been great.”
#50 Joel Granfors
“A really strong weekend for us. Qualifying went to plan and the pace was very good, then in race one I got a good start and was able to get a gap with Luke and Tom fighting behind me. Luke caught up, but we had enough to hang on, so I just tried to save the tyres as much as possible for the weekend. We’d been quick around here in testing and it’s a bit of revenge for Oulton I guess!”
