Zandvoort, August 10th.
Brazilian Fabio Carbone will start tomorrow's Marlboro Masters of Formula 3 at Zandvoort from pole position after a stunning effort in qualifying at the Dutch track.

Carbone, who is new to Zandvoort, was fourth fastest in his group in the first qualifying session, but unleashed a string of three successive pole position laps this afternoon, each one faster than the last.

It spearheaded a great day for the British Fortec Motorsport team, which managed to get both its Dallara-Renaults on the front two rows of the grid (Carbone's Finnish team-mate Heikki Kovalainen will start from fourth).

Carbone lies ninth in the British series points and has yet to win an F3 race in his rookie season, although he has twice taken pole position, both times at Silverstone. Kovalainen, though, has taken one victory in the
British Grand Prix support race.
"It helps to have a quick team-mate," said Carbone. "In the first session I could not improve my time because there were too many yellow flags but I knew I had a good car and I got some clear laps in the second session. In
the beginning it was a little bit wet, but we saved the tyres and then I just went for it. For sure I will win this one!"

Kovalainen was pleased too. "There was no way I could improve onto the front row in the second session because of the weather," he said. "It started raining, so I just decided to save my tyres for tomorrow."

Starting in between the Fortec cars will be the Dallara-Renaults of French team ASM, with Olivier Pla second and Tristan Gommendy third.
"I have had no problem learning this circuit and my car is very good," said Pla, who sat on pole position after the morning qualifying sessions before his time was beaten by Carbone.
Gommendy bounced back after having his morning session times (which had been good enough for provisional pole) scrubbed because he set his fastest lap while a wrong set of tyres was fitted on his car.

The third-row men were both a surprise, with Dane Ronnie Bremer (in a Manor Motorsport Dallara-Mugen Honda which he races in the British championship) joined by Dutchman Robert Doornbos, who set a great pace in his Team
Ghinzani Dallara-Mugen Honda, which he normally races in Germany.

For the leading men in the various championships the day was a disaster. British series leader Robbie Kerr starts alongside his main title rival James Courtney on the sixth row; French top man Renaud Derlot is back on
row 14; while German series front-runners Kousuke Matsuura and Frank Diefenbacher are on the fifth and ninth rows respectively.

Official press relaese Circuit Zandvoort
bu, 10.08.02