IF A record existed for overtaking manoeuvres in a single weekend of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship, then Alex Lynn probably broke it in the latest round at Austria's Red Bull Ring.
A mysterious grip problem struck the ace Italian Prema Powerteam squad that Lynn drives for during wet qualifying, leaving Lynn and his team-mates with a tough job to do in the dry races.
Yet over the course of the three races Lynn made up a total of 36 places to grab some useful points and consolidate fourth place in the championship table.
Lynn said: "I just couldn't put a whole lap together because of the grip, and the whole team was struggling."
Lynn then stalled at the start of race one, and got away 28th and last, but his Mercedes-powered Dallara soon went on a charge. By lap seven he was amazingly in the top 10, and by the finish of the race, he was seventh.
With the rest of the field getting up to speed on the dry track, passing was more difficult in race two. Lynn got tagged by his ex-Formula Renault team-mate, Mitchell Gilbert just past the halfway point, before finally passing the Australian.
Then he came up on his ex-British F3 team-mate Pipo Derani with a few laps to go. Lynn passed the Brazilian into turn two, but then Derani got a run on him down the next straight and the two cars tangled, sending the Briton into a rear-end impact with the tyre wall.
The third race provided another spectacular race into the points for Lynn, who finished eighth from 21st on the grid and perfected an outside move into turn three that worked on several rivals.
There is now something of a gap in the F3 calendar. Teams will test for two days at the Red Bull Ring this week, and then it's a wait until the prestigious non-championship Masters of F3 at the Dutch circuit of Zandvoort.
"The whole Prema team are really disappointed with the results they got, but I'm happy I did the best job I could from where I started," said Lynn, member of the MSA's Team UK and the British Racing Drivers Club's SuperStars programme.
