Motorsport: Double trouble for Hartley

Brendon Hartley was hit from behind by his team mate during wet qualifying and then slid into the rear of a rival car bringing out the red flag on the first lap of the Euro Formula 3 race at the Norisring in southern Germany overnight.

The New Zealander's Red Bull Dallara retired from the opening Bavarian race with four others cars involved in the second corner incident, and will start the second race at the tight Nuremburg circuit tonight from the back of the grid.

"It's really unfortunate as I think we've had a decent car here, but pretty much everything that could have gone wrong this weekend has done," said Hartley.

"I had an ok start off the line, and was trying to keep position. I think I was a little too far on the inside going into turn two, possibly on the dirty line, and as soon as I touched the brakes, they just locked and there was nothing I could do. It was my fault but I was just a passenger from then on."

The previous day a torrential downpour minutes before the start of the qualifying session led to last minute set up changes and treacherous conditions on track. Hartley was running ahead of his team mate Jake Rosenzweig when the American was caught out by the conditions and rammed into him. The incident brought out the red flag.

Hartley's car had a broken rear wing, broken wish bones and a puncture but his Carlin team did well to get him back out on track with just 8 minutes remaining.

However, the treaded Kumho wet tyres take at least 10 minutes to get up to temperature, so Hartley could only salvage 15th place in the 27-car feild. The team reckoned he could have been in the top six if he had got just a few more laps.

With Hartley and four other cars out in the opening moments of the race, Jules Bianchi extended his lead in the Formula 3 Euro Series standings by winning the rain-shortened Saturday race at the Norisring.

The ART driver had a relatively simple run to victory once he shook off pole-sitter Alexander Sims on the restart on lap seven. Sims fought back initially, but was then forced to defend from Stefano Coletti. This allowed Bianchi to ease away.
The race ended in confusion, as a heavy rain shower forced a red flag on lap 19. The cars lined up on the start/finish straight and were switched to wet tyres, but just after the race was restarted, the time limit was reached. As a result, Bianchi did not lead a competitive race lap in the wet.

The Frenchman had a scare when he stalled at the beginning of the formation lap for the initial grid start. However he got away before the last car had passed him and regained his original position.

Sims took his first podium after a tough battle with former championship leader Coletti, who had a straight line speed advantage running a rear wing without a top element.

The Prema driver got alongside several times, and even took the place very briefly on a couple of occasions but Sims fought back each time.

Their scrap enabled Esteban Gutierrez and Roberto Merhi to get involved as well, which prevented Coletti from concentrating on going forward. Merhi briefly passed Gutierrez for fourth, but he then overshot the first corner after trying to defend from the Mexican on lap 14.

That put the Spaniard into the clutches of Christian Vietoris, who had come through the field from 14th on the grid to sixth, but he ran out of time to make a pass. Adrien Tambay had been another driver to battle with the leaders early on, but he was given a drive-through penalty for jumping the start from third on the grid.

Behind the top six, Jean-Karl Vernay took seventh and was the first VW-engined Dallara, while Sam Bird earned himself pole position for Sunday's reversed-grid race by picking off Henkie Waldschmidt on lap 15, having started down in 16th place.

There was more good news for Bianchi, as fellow title contender Mika Maki's hopes were dealt a severe blow on the opening lap, when he was caught up in the six-car accident triggered by Hartley running into the back of Valtteri Bottas at Turn 2.