Motorsports Mondial
The Flying Kiwi
Photo © ATS Formel 3 Cup
Richie “Runaway” Stanaway. The 19-year old New Zealander made a perfect start to the 2011 German Formula 3 Championship by winning both races of round one.
The season started at Oschersleben, in what used to be East Germany, with Stanaway qualifying on front row beside pole-sitter Tom Blomqvist, who is racing under a British license but was raised in New Zealand.
Stanaway got the jump on Blomqvist at the start and led the race from start to finish. The two rookies occupied the top two steps of the podium. Marco Sorenson of Denmark was third. Alon Day of Israel was fourth and Dutch driver Hannes van Asseldonk made it three rookies in the top five.
Hannes had pole for second race with Stanaway again sharing the front row. The race was more of the same, the Kiwi keeping his cool and grabbing the lead at the start which he kept till the checkered flag. Sorenson was second. Austrian Rene Binder took third. German rookie Tony Halbig finished fourth ahead of another German rookie Patrick Schranner.
Pole-sitter van Asseldonk came in eighth after surviving an early contact with Blomqvist.
Stanaway leads the championship with 22 points. Sorenson is second on 14 points and Blomqvist third with 9 points.
Stanaway Story. Richie was born on November 24, 1991 in Rotorua and currently resides in Milton Keynes. His motorsport career began in motocross. He was regional Rotax Max champion in his first year of karting.
Championship winning performance in the 2008/09 New Zealand Formula Ford series, scoring 11 wins and 15 podium finishes from 21 races, set him on his European campaign.
He made his debut in the German ADAC Formula Masters series in 2009 and last year won the championship in dominating fashion; winning 12 races and podium finishes in 17 of 18 races.
Stanaway is now part of Gravity Management and racing in the German F3 with Dutch van Amersfoort Racing. The quick Kiwi hopes to follow in the steps of other graduates of this series, Jarno Trulli and Michael Schumacher, to the promised land of Formula 1.
— Nasir Hameed
Greetings and das racing regards.