Ricci praises his three drivers after ‘positive’ Spa weekend for TRIDENT

TRIDENT Team Manager Giacomo Ricci was pleased with how the Spa-Francorchamps weekend went for his squad, as all three of his drivers scored impressive results.

Noah Stromsted achieved his first Formula 3 victory with a dominant performance in the Sprint Race, where he was joined on the podium by teammate Charlie Wurz.

FEATURE RACE: Benavides heads field after Red Flag stoppage in Spa

Championship leader Rafael Câmara qualified second behind AIX Racing’ s Brad Benavides, before finishing fifth on Saturday. But with torrential rain curtailing the Feature Race, the Brazilian did not have a chance to go for a fourth victory of the season.

Reflecting on the weekend as a whole, Ricci said: “Positive weekend for us. I’m really pleased with the result we have been able to achieve. Qualifying was a difficult one, it was necessary to find a tow and with the tyres you get only one lap around here, so happy for this.

“We were close to pole but well done to AIX for achieving their first pole position. Saturday was a good race for us, we showed very strong pace and, in the end, finishing 1-3 is very good.

“I’m super happy for Noah Stromsted for his first victory and very pleased for Charlie’s podium. Also, Câmara’s result was good. He just finished behind Tsolov, so he was able to recover a lot of positions and lost only one point this weekend.”

Stromsted won the Sprint Race by six seconds over Ugo Ugochukwu after taking the lead early on. Ricci was very impressed by how the Danish rookie managed all 12 laps.

READ MORE: Câmara aiming to maximise for the Championship after fight to P5 in Spa Sprint Race

“He did a great job,” said the TRIDENT boss. “It was a dominant performance from his side, he was managing the race and never pushed to be honest.

“Simply, he was able to increase the gap without having so much degradation, so that was good. You don’t see someone win at Spa with that gap in dry conditions, because here the DRS is extremely powerful, so it’s impressive.”

TRIDENT now head to Budapest, the penultimate round of the season and the final race weekend before the summer break leading both the Drivers’ and Teams’ Standings.

For Ricci after a difficult weekend at Silverstone where they scored five points as a team, he hopes Spa can be a catalyst for them to end the year on a high.

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“I have to say that in the previous weekends, maybe we weren’t super lucky for different reasons but the speed has always been there,” he added.

“We definitely came back stronger for the Spa race weekend, so I am really looking forward to Budapest. We are at the end of the Championship, so everything is still possible, but head down and keep working because only two rounds are left.”