Jazeman Jaafar To Race In Euro F3 To Keep Fit

(Motorsport News) Tuesday, 14th August 2012

Jazeman racing at Nurbugring to maintain race fitness

JAZEMAN JAAFAR OFF TO GERMANY FOR MORE RACING

Jazeman Jaafar will be back behind the wheel of his F3 car this weekend in Nurburgring, Germany. The PETRONAS Talent Programme driver will be contesting the fifth round of the Formula 3 Euro Series as part of his 2012 calendar of race weekends.

The Nurburgring event will be Jaafar’s third visit to the venue used regularly in Formula 1 and an historic track which shares its location with the famed Nordschleife circuit. His first outing to the Grand Prix circuit was in Formula BMW three years ago and he then returned last year for a round of British F3, when he scored two top five finishes.

Jaafar is racing in this weekend’s Formula 3 Euro Series to bridge the long gap between British F3 rounds, with the next event not being held until the second week of September. As Jaafar explains, “The best way to maintain race fitness is to keep racing, so I’ve taken the opportunity to participate as an ‘invitation’ driver at Nurburgring. I’ll be racing in my British F3 car, but we’ll be running on Hankook tyres rather than the Cooper tyres we use for British F3. The car does handle differently depending on which tyre we’re using and it’s good experience for me to work with my engineers to develop the car set up to best suit the tyre and the track conditions. “

He adds, “As I’m not doing the whole calendar of Euro F3 events, I don’t have the pressure of racing for a championship title and this gives me the opportunity to have a different approach to a race and consider different strategies within each race. I love racing, so I’m very happy to have another weekend in the cockpit and be out on track pitting myself against the best F3 drivers in Europe.”

The Nurburgring circuit, a regular feature on the Formula 1 calendar sharing the honour of being the venue for the Formula 1 German Grand Prix with Hockenheim, was revamped in 2009 to offer motorsport one of the most modern, stylish facilities with a technically challenging circuit.

Jaafar, a leading Malaysian international racing driver, says of the venue, “Racing at one of the premier motorsport tracks, which is on the calendar of Formula 1 and all the other top racing series, is very important, as it gives me experience of this level of track early in my career and will undoubtedly be somewhere I will regularly race at as I progress up the categories of the sport.”

The Formula 3 Euro Series event at Nurburgring, sharing the bill with the popular DTM, German Touring Cars series, will start with a practice session and qualifying on Friday. The first race takes place on Saturday in the morning, with the second of the trio in the afternoon. The final race of the weekend will be on Sunday morning as a support to the DTM feature event later in the day. The races can be streamed live at www.f3euroseries.com.