{"id":7317,"date":"2024-07-15T13:21:39","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T17:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=7317"},"modified":"2024-07-15T13:21:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T17:21:39","slug":"colin-queen-has-best-weekend-of-rookie-gb3-season-at-zandvoort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/15\/colin-queen-has-best-weekend-of-rookie-gb3-season-at-zandvoort\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Queen has best weekend of rookie GB3 season at Zandvoort"},"content":{"rendered":"

19-year-old American finishes season-best fourth, seventh in tricky conditions<\/em><\/p>\n

ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (15 July 2024) \u2013 Colin Queen had the biggest weekend of his rookie campaign in the GB3 Partnered by the BRDC, scoring season-best finishes of fourth and seventh in the Summer Trophy Weekend at Circuit Zandvoort.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old Floridian backed by ONE Sotheby\u2019s International Reality qualified 14th\u00a0in the No. 62 fielded by Fortec Motorsports to open the fifth event of the campaign, and opened the weekend with a season-best seventh in Saturday\u2019s rainy Race 1.<\/p>\n

Sunday saw better conditions for Race 2, with Queen avoiding carnage at lights-out and then charging to finish fourth \u2013 missing the podium by just 0.422-seconds.<\/p>\n

He ended the weekend with another top-10 in Race 3, placing ninth after passing two of the championship contenders late in the event \u2013 his sixth top-10 finish of the season. Entering the weekend 13th\u00a0in the standings, he is now 11th\u00a0in the points \u2013 but well in the hunt for sixth position.<\/p>\n

\u201cPossibly my best drives of the season, for sure,\u201d Queen said of his first visit to the track. \u201cVery hectic, but successful. I\u2019ve learned a lot this year about race strategy; taking care of my tires; so many things.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he was third in Thursday\u2019s unofficial testing, the weekend opened in disappointment when he qualified 14th.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still need to work on qualifying,\u201d Queen admitted. \u201cWe had really strong sectors, but I just didn\u2019t piece them together at the end. It was raining at the start of the session, but it was drying out at the end, and I overheated my rear tires. We had been up to fifth or sixth most of the time, but I fell back at the end. I definitely felt I had the pace, but it was not where we wanted to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s Race 1 was held on a drying track, with the competitors running on slick tires despite on-and-off showers throughout the 14-turn circuit that changed from lap to lap. Queen had a strong start and passed four cars on the opening lap. He was up to eighth before a caution period at the midway point, and came up just short in the battle for sixth at the finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a race for survival in mixed conditions on slicks, and I definitely thrived in that,\u201d Queen said. \u201cIt started pouring with just two turns left on the formation lap. This is going to be interesting! I got a good start. I trusted my instincts, and the car really came to me. I worked my way up as other people were making mistakes. 14th\u00a0to seventh was a really good run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday had been his best result of the season after placing eighth and ninth in the season-opening Easter Weekend races at Oulton Park.<\/p>\n

But Sunday\u2019s finish was even better.<\/p>\n

Gridded 12th\u00a0(based on second-best qualifying time), Queen went to the right to barely miss a three-car accident directly in front of him. He was up to eighth when a red flag sent the field to the pits, with the race resuming with a full restart. He was eighth on the opening lap, and then took sixth following a yellow-flag restart. Queen worked his way to fourth with five minutes remaining, and challenged for third for the remainder of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a massive crash at the beginning, as I was as close as you can get without being taken out \u2013 I was brushing the pit wall,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a hectic race. I got really good positions on the restarts. I set people up for overtakes and got it done. The car was basically perfect for the entire race, and I have to thank Fortec for that. We had the pace to fight, and that\u2019s one of the most important things for this circuit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gridded 13th\u00a0for Race 3, Queen gained a position on the opening lap. He was battling for 11th\u00a0on a restart at the beginning of Lap 11, but had light contact and lost three positions. Undaunted, he came up on three cars battling for positions with two laps remaining and passed all of them, and held off the top-two cars in the championship in the battle to the checkered flag to finish ninth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe third race was a bit unfortunate,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were a bit off on the track conditions and it had a lot of oversteer. Then at the end, luckily we were on new tires and they held on a bit longer than if we were on old tires. Going four wide with two laps to go was was absolutely mental. I almost hit the wall because the other car was squeezing me, but I managed to keep my foot down and I got by all of them and held them off for the last lap and a half. It was a difficult race, keeping the car underneath me, as well as defending for my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

GB3 returns to England for the final three weekends of the season, beginning with Silverstone July 27-28 with four races, including a makeup event from Round 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my home race, because I live in Silverstone,\u201d Queen said. \u201cLast time there earlier in the season, the weather was horrendous, and we\u2019re expecting more of that when we go back. But whatever the conditions are, I think we\u2019ll be ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19-year-old American finishes season-best fourth, seventh in tricky conditions ZANDVOORT, Netherlands (15 July 2024) \u2013 Colin Queen had the biggest weekend of his rookie campaign in [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-colin-queen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7317"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7319,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7317\/revisions\/7319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}