F3: Pommer says he used Verstappen's "tricks" at Zandvoort

Markus Pommer says he made use of data from Max Verstappen's Masters of F3 victory of 2014 for his first career win in the Formula 3 European Championship at Zandvoort.

Pommer qualified his Motopark Dallara-Volkswagen on the front row for the first time in European F3, and was never headed after getting the jump on poleman Antonio Giovinazzi at the start. Motopark won at the Dutch track last year on a one-off outing with Verstappen, who had his first F3 test with the team at Valencia in December 2013.

Even though Verstappen was using an older-spec German F3 car for his Masters win, Pommer said: "I saw the data from Max, and maybe it helped a bit. I saw some tricks!"

The 24-year-old German, who has aspirations to move into LMP2, also paid tribute to the Motopark team, which is back at the top level of F3 for its first full season since 2011. Numerous good results have gone begging this season, including a drive-through penalty for a starting infringement after qualifying fifth in Pau and a black flag for driving standards while running third at Spa.

His best result prior to the weekend was fifth in the opening round at Silverstone, but Pommer finally scored his first podium in race one at Zandvoort, before winning the finale.

"We've improved a lot; if I compare it with the winter tests the trend is going up all the time," Pommer said. "Silverstone was good, then at Hockenheim [round two] we had technical defects and wrong fuel, but since Pau [round three] I have had the pace for the podium."

Motopark won six races in the old F3 Euro Series between 2009 and '11, including three victories for Antonio Felix da Costa (pictured below), who won his first DTM race at Zandvoort only hours after Pommer's win at the same circuit. The other three were taken by Renger van der Zande, Kevin Magnussen and Kimiya Sato.

All six of those wins were reversed-grid races, meaning Pommer is the first driver to win a full-points top-level F3 race for the team.

Originally on Autosport.com