Mercedes Oschersleben race notes

High Five: Dallara Mercedes Cover Top-Five Places Twice

The Dallara Mercedes drivers covered the top-five positions in both races of the fifth event of the 2005 Formula 3 Euro Series at Oschersleben. On Saturday, Lucas di Grassi (Manor Motorsport) won ahead of ASM team mates Adrian Sutil and Lewis Hamilton, Paul di Resta (Manor) and Sebastian Vettel (Mucke Motorsport). On Sunday, Hamilton won ahead of di Grassi, Sutil, di Resta and Vettel. The drivers with the Mercedes-Benz Formula 3 engine M271 developed from the production engine of the C- and E-Class have won nine of ten races in the first half of the season and achieved all ten pole positions. Hamilton, who achieved seven of these nine victories, leads the championship with 86 points ahead of Sutil with 57 points and James Rossiter (Dallara-Opel) with 45. In the season's next ten races a driver can score a maximum of 120 points.

Result

Race 1: Starting from his first pole position in the Euro Series, di Grassi accelerated into an immediate lead and maintained his lead until the chequered flag. His team mate di Resta who had qualified second dropped to fourth at the start and finished the 20-lap race in the same position. Adrian Sutil had to hold off his team mate Lewis Hamilton who attacked several times. Both ASM drivers crossed the finish line within less than 0.8sec in second and third places respectively. So far this year Hamilton did not finish a race worse than third. Sebastian Vettel ended up fifth whilst his Mucke Motorsport team mate Atila Abreu came home eighth. Hannes Neuhauser (HBR) hit Loic Duval's car at the start and retired. The race had been interrupted due to a heavy thunderstorm at noon and had been restarted later in the afternoon.

Race 2: Starting from pole position Hamilton took the lead ahead of di Grassi, Sutil, di Resta and Vettel who improved from sixth on the grid to fifth. After 20 laps, they finished the race in the same order. Hamilton achieved his seventh win of the season. Abreu won an exciting fight with Guillaume Moreau and came home tenth.

Lucas di Grassi (Manor): "I'm happy about my first victory in the Euro Series and I thank everybody in our team. Since the race at Monaco five weeks ago we have improved significantly. I controlled Saturday's race and would have been able to go two or three tenths of a second per lap faster. With the pole position and after finishing second on Sunday I scored 19 points, more than every other driver this weekend, which was really satisfying."

Lewis Hamilton (ASM): "I concentrated on winning the start to be first at the first corner, because overtaking is very difficult on this track. I'm very happy about today's victory. Thank you to everybody in the team for a perfect car."

2005 Formula 3 Euroseries, Oschersleben

Race 1 -- Pole Position: Lucas di Grassi, 1:17.781 -- fastest lap: Giedo van der Garde, 1:19.384

Race 2 - Pole Position: Lewis Hamilton, 1:17.747 - fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, 1:19.183

-dc/mercedes-