Among the various support races that take place at Grands Prix, particularly those in the European races, is the GP3 tournament, and I was able to watch some of the GP3 racing at the 2013 British Grand Prix in June. The racing is normally very competitive in GP3, just like GP2, as drivers compete not just to win the series, but to make a name for themselves and be spotted as appropriate for the next level up in GP2. In its relatively short life, GP3 has already helped to populate Formula One with talented drivers who have moved through the ranks from this formula.
The GP3 cars had to contend with the same changing conditions as the other competitors over the weekend, with Friday being rather wet, and Saturday and Sunday being both dry and increasingly warm. Like GP2, the GP3 cars and drivers have a single practice session over the weekend, then a single qualifying session, followed by two races, one on Saturday afternoon and one on Sunday morning. Whereas there formerly had been variation in the Grand Prix events in various countries, with local series making an appearance – Silverstone was normally home to a classic car event during the Grand Prix weekend, with a race after the Grand Prix itself – there has been more and more standardisation so that the current line up for the weekend is very similar to most of the other European Grands Prix.
The racing was good quality, and the first race of the weekend returned a British winner in the form of Jack Harvey, the twenty year old Lincolnshire driver who is a member of the McLaren Young Driver programme, who is enjoying his first year in GP3 after two years in British Formula Three, culminating in winning the championship in 2012 for Carlin. I suspect that we will see more of Jack.
I did not take that many pictures of the GP3 racing at the 2013 British Grand Prix, but I hope that you like the handful of pictures here.
There is an index of all my photo galleries from the weekend here.
