This weekend at the Norisring, the first half of the 2017 FIA Formula 3 European Championship season will be completed.
Joel Eriksson (Motopark) has the best position in the fight for the unofficial mid-season title. After all, the Swede travels to Nuremberg’s 2.3-kilometre long street circuit as championship leader. Five points behind him, the best German driver on the grid, Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam), holds second position, followed by the Britons Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam) and Lando Norris (Carlin).
Apart from Günther, Mick Schumacher (Prema Powerteam), David Beckmann (Motopark) and Keyvan Andres (Motopark) also represent the German colours on the competitive grid of young international drivers.
Maximilian Günther is the only one of the top four drivers who already won a race at the Norisring. Two years ago, the Bavarian who lives only 300 kilometres away from Nuremberg and turns 20 on Sunday made it to the top step of the podium. And in the following year he added a third place to his Norisring record. The best Norisring result of Joel Eriksson so far was a fifth place. But the Swede had to cope with a dose of bad luck in 2016. While in the lead he was pushed out of the race by a rival who missed his braking spot. Callum Ilott’s best results in Nuremberg were two seven places and rookie Lando Norris hasn’t raced at the Norisring yet.
A fact that also applies to Keyvan Andres and Mick Schumacher: 18-year old rookie Mick Schumacher who secured his first FIA Formula 3 European Championship podium in Monza is going to make his Norisring debut this weekend. Just as 17-year old Keyvan Andres who gathered his first single-seater racing experiences in North America and also is about to contest his first races in Nuremberg.
David Beckmann, however, already raced in Nuremberg last year and secured a top-10 result. And following his difficult start into the 2017 season, the Motopark driver secured his best results in the 2017 season to date by finishing fifth at the Hungaroring twice two weeks ago.
David Beckmann (Motopark): “The Norisring is a very special circuit and I always love to travel to Nuremberg. It’s a very short racetrack and I expect the racing to be very close. I believe that the qualifying sessions already will be pretty exciting and the races certainly also won’t be boring as this street circuit actually offers overtaking opportunities. The braking zones are the key areas as you can lose a lot even if you miss one only slightly.”
“I also like that the Norisring race meeting always attracts a big crowd. It’s great to witness the people’s enthusiasm for motor racing and I love racing in front of packed grandstands. I travel to the Norisring in a very confident mood.”
“Since I switched to Team Motopark things are running better for me. And I think that we can keep on improving as we still have to get used to the new arrangement. Furthermore, Motopark demonstrated as early as 2016 that they have got what it takes to be fast at the Norisring. Joel could have won if he hadn’t been pushed out of the race from the lead by a rival.”