2nd April 2002 Press Release
FIA F3000 Championship Round One - Brazil
Having dominated pre-season testing, the Arden team arrived in Brazil with high expectations for the season ahead. During qualifying, Tomas Enge recorded the fastest time in the first session before Super Nova’s Sebastien Bourdais bettered his time by 0.06 secs in the second session leaving him 2nd on the grid. Young Swedish rookie, Bjorn Wirdheim, on his first visit to Brazil, improved during both sessions eventually qualifying 5th despite losing time on his fastest lap avoiding a spinning Bourdais.
The race took place in searing heat immediately after Formula One qualifying. Enge made a reasonable start slotting in behind Bourdais into the first corner but this didn’t last long as the Czech driver easily passed the Frenchman into turn 4 and immediately started to pull away.
Wirdheim’s first F3000 start didn’t go quite to plan as he stalled when the lights turned to green. Eventually starting from last position, the Arden driver started a remarkable recovery. As Enge continued to build his lead Wirdheim gradually started working his way through the field. Visually faster than other cars the young Swede produced some stunning moves on several seasoned drivers, Saleens, Pantano, Sperafico, Toccacelo, Friesacher, to name just a few!
By lap 28 of 35, Enge had managed to produce an enormous lead of 12.5 seconds over Rodrigo Sperafico with Wirdheim now in an incredible 6th position. Unfortunately disaster struck on the 29th lap as the leading Arden car slowed with fuel pressure problems, forcing Enge to pit and retire from the race with a fuel pump failure.
Shortly after Enge’s retirement the safety car was deployed in order to retrieve a crashed car thus enabling the now 5th Wirdheim to close up to Pizzonia. Despite several attempts to pass the local hero during the remaining two laps Wirdheim had to settle for 5th position after what had been an incredible debut.
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Bjorn Wirdheim commented “Having never seen the circuit before it was a lot more technical than I expected it to be. I used the first session to learn the track and pushed hard in the second. After too much wheel spin on my practice start I used too few revs on the next one and unfortunately lost the engine. As soon as I restarted I just pushed as hard as possible and made some aggressive moves. The car was excellent in the race and I could run very close to the cars in front. After the restart I pushed Pizzonia as hard as possible but he defended very robustly, sometimes too robustly! Overall I was happy with my weekend just disappointed that I stalled as I am sure that I would have been on the podium.”
Christian Horner commented “Obviously we are disappointed that we didn’t win the race after Tomas had such a commanding lead. He had recorded 27 fastest laps up to that point which was extremely impressive. Bjorn’s performance was incredible especially as it was his F3000 debut. He was sensible in qualifying and if he hadn’t stalled I am sure he would have won the race after Tomas’ retirement. We now look forward to the start of the European season at Imola in two weeks time. ”
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