Australian Joey Mawson experienced a challenging weekend during Round Two of the 2017 FIA Formula 3 European Championship at Monza, Italy.
The PODIUM-backed driver fought gallantly across the weekend but was unable to show his true potential.
After qualifying tenth Mawson was fighting inside the top ten in Race One before he was caught up in an incident involving his Van Amersfoort Racing team-mate Pedro Piquet. He would eventually be classified 14th.
In Race Two, Mawson made an impressive start to move up the order from his 13th starting position to be in a points-scoring position in the opening few laps. After running as high as eighth, contact from a car behind him caused a puncture to his left-rear tyre. As a result he was forced to pit and replaced the tyre ending his run towards the front.
Due to having his second fastest lap in Qualifying Two removed due to exceeding track limits, Mawson started the final race from 18th. Determined to make the most of his opportunities Mawson was the big mover in the opening lap to charge his way inside the top ten. He was then battling with Mick Schumacher and Pedro Piquet for ninth before dropping a few places. His run ended after Marino Sato locked his brakes while making an attempt to pass Mawson. The contact damaged Mawson’s right rear suspension and left him stranded.
“It was one of those weekends when nothing went right. No matter what we tried with the car we just couldn’t extract the most amount of speed out of it which left me vulnerable in the races,” said Mawson.
“Every race I made some great starts and moved up the order in the early laps but I just couldn’t maintain the speed of the front runners.
“We continually improved across the weekend and gained with every session but we’ve still got to get a lot more out of the car to be fighting for podiums at the next round.”
After two rounds of the Championship Joel Eriksson leads the standings on 104 points ahead of Lando Norris on 103. Mawson is 11th on 14 points.
The next round will be contested on the Pau street circuit in France on May 19-21.
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS (After Round 2 of 10)
1. Joel Eriksson – 104 points
2. Lando Norris – 103
3. Callum Illott – 76
4. Maximilian Günther – 72
5. Mick Schumacher – 43
6. Jake Dennis – 38
7. Jehan Daruvala – 37
8. Ferdinand Habsburg – 35
9. Guanyu Zhou – 31
10. Jake Hughes – 16
11. Joey Mawson – 14