Edoardo Mortara halftime champion
18.07.2008 - Ten rounds of the 2008 Formula 33 Euro Series season have been contested: halftime in the planet’s most competitive young-talent series. The unofficial halftime-champion title was secured by Italy’s Edoardo Mortara (Signature-Plus), with the best rookie, Mika Mäki (Mücke Motorsport), following in second position.
With ten rounds contested, Mortara holds a nine-point lead over the Finn. A lead he gained - inter alia - thanks to his extremely consistent performances delivered during the course of the first four race weekends of the season. Up to the Zandvoort, weekend the young man residing in Geneva, Switzerland, scored in every single race - and was the only driver to do so. In the Netherlands, however, he failed to add more points to his tally.
Mika Mäki used this opportunity to clearly reduce his gap to the championship leader. Other than Mortara - who has got just one race win under his belt - Mäki secured three winner trophies but on the other hand, he had to leave two Formula 3 Euro Series venues empty-handed.
Nico Hülkenberg (ART Grand Prix) currently holds fourth position in the championship. Bad luck seems to truly be following the German around. In the season opener, he held the lead when an engine failure forced him into retirement. And at Zandvoort, he was disqualified after having crossed the finish line of the first round of the weekend as race winner. After the race, the scrutineers found out that his Dallara didn’t meet the stipulated minimum weight. A breach of the rules that was caused by the fire extinguisher having exhausted its content during the race.
Dutchman Renger van der Zande (Prema Powerteam) benefited from Hülkenberg’s bad luck: In his home event, he passed the Williams Formula 1 test driver in the championship. More and more, van der Zande turns out to be a specialist for the Sunday rounds: in three Sunday races he made it to the podium and twice, he even did so as race winner.
The situation behind thee top four is extremely close: fifth-placed Christian Vietoris (Mücke Motorsport) lies just five points ahead of Japan’s Koudai Tsukakoshi (Manor Motorsport) in tenth position.
At the last weekend in July, the Formula 3 Euro Series young guns are going to kick off the second half of the season at the Nürburgring.