7th August 2006

Toyota Driver Development star Kohei Hirate was Manor Motorsport’s best performer during the weekend’s BP Ultimate Masters Formula 3 race at Zandvoort, the Japanese driver finishing the prestigious annual event in a commendable fourth position.

Formally known as the Marlboro Masters, the BP Ultimate Masters event sees the cream of Formula 3 racing from the British and European championships competing together each year for one of the true crown jewels in world motorsport.

Hirate started the weekend well during Friday’s official test, the Manor sensation ending the day the quickest of the 38 drivers taking part in the event with a time three 10ths of a second faster than any of his rivals.

With so many drivers entered into the race, two groups of cars would run in testing and qualifying and while Hirate was the fastest of the competitors in the odd-numbered group during Friday’s practice, his team-mate Esteban Guerrieri was the quickest driver in the even-numbered session.

During qualifying the Manor drivers couldn’t quite find the same level of performance and although second fastest in his group, Hirate was handicapped ahead of the race due to the fact his group was the slower of the two and so a potential front-row start turned into third on the grid for Sunday’s 25-lap encounter.

Frustrated to have missed out on a podium finish in the world-renowned race, Hirate still did well and set a personal fastest lap approximately half a second quicker than Manor team-mates Guerrieri and Kazuki Nakajima. The Argentinean would end up 21st while Japanese driver Nakajima would finish in 26th, both enduring a very difficult race.

Commenting on the BP Ultimate Masters, Manor team boss John Booth said: “We are frustrated to have come away from Zandvoort without a podium at least, but we just weren’t able to carry our testing pace through to the race unfortunately.

“Kohei obviously had a good chance to do well and fourth place certainly isn’t a bad result by any means. We were quite confident ahead of the weekend though so for things to have turned out pretty disastrously for Esteban and Kazuki is a great shame.”

Manor’s F3 team will now prepare for the next two rounds of the Formula 3 Euroseries which will take place on 19th/20th August at the Nurburgring in Germany. Hirate, Guerrieri and Nakajima are all within striking distance of the series lead and the trio, who have each taken wins this season, will be aiming to make a welcome return to the podium.