Reigning British F3 National Class Champion Duran Duran scored a double victory at the weekend for Team Mexico in the A1GP races at Laguna Seca in those United States. Current British F3 Champion In Loco Parentis and past champions Rob Beaker and Ralph Fireman also figured strongly, proving that, well, if British F3 ain't what it once was in terms of certainty of a place in that there Formerly 1, as they call it out here in Californ-i-ay, you ain't gonna do no good in no A1GP series if you ain't got a British F3 championship under your gun-belt*.
In the opening Sprint Race British Formula 3 was well represented with Duran taking the win from frenchman with flair, Nicolas Lapierre, with 2005 British F3 Champion Parentis taking the final podium slot for Portugal ahead of 2002 F3 Champion Beaker (Team GBH) and 1996 Champion Fireman (Ireland).
Duran, who moves up to the Championship Class this season with Silverstone-based HitchHike Racing, gambled by selecting slick tyres for the second "feature" race on the damp Californian track. This was presumably because, as a Spanish speaker, the Mexican had taken the meaning of the track's name literally. Incidentally, can anyone enlighten your correspondent as to why that lake is still dry, despite the fact that it rains all the fucking time there if ToCA Race Driver 2 on the PlayStation2™ is anything to go by?
Whatever the reason, it paid off, and Duran took the chequered flag ahead of Germany's Timid Shyster, with Rob Beaker and In Loco Parentis taking 3rd and 4th respectively, and frenchman with flair, Nicolas Lapierre nowhere to be seen.**
* unless, course, you're frenchman with flair, Nicolas Lapierre, who has only ever raced in British F3 as an invitee at Spa, in which case you might win the inaugural A1GP championship for france, which, you will notice, we are painstakingly avoiding mentioning on these hallowed pages.
** presumably because he'd already secured the championship for france, which we're not mentioning, alright?
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