Hugh Barter received a five-second time penalty for track limits offenses in Barcelona in FIA F3 and said: “I think they were a bit harsh.”
The Australian driver drove very consistently over the weekend in Spain finishing in P19 and 13th place for Campos.
Barter said when asked about his opinion on the track limits penalty by insideF2: “I think they were a bit harsh, they need to take into account on Lap 1 the circumstances of which the driver is in because they gave me a track limit for something out of my control.
“The rest of the track limits were ok but without that one track limit, I would have no penalty so I think that’s the case for a couple of drivers out there think (Taylor) Barnard was one of them that they went off track because someone forced them off track.
“It’s not because it was under their own will or doing which is like in my case so we’ll see what’s the outcome of that and maybe P11 so still no points.”
Barter is yet to score a point this season and remained level-headed in the Feature race despite it being tricky to overtake at the high-speed Circuit De Barcelona-Catalunya.
“The race was good I made a couple of spots up at the start after Lap 1 I was in P12 and then I had the mentality of ‘if I keep this position there’s going to be a couple of battles that come up later in the race’ and a few people started to deg.”
The 17-year-old explained that the handling of his car shifted slightly midway through the race which made it even tougher to follow the cars in front.
“My car felt really good but midway through the race the balance started changing a little bit it became a lot more difficult for me to manage, still tough to stay within DRS to keep with the pack, and just didn’t feel like I had the pace to at the start.
“In hindsight, it was better to make a couple of moves then but it is what it is. Then at the end of the race obviously there was a whole bunch of battling and I think I did really good in placing my car in the right spots.”
Campos took a memorable victory at their home event in Spain in the hands of Pepe Marti, his third victory of the year.
Barter congratulated his team and is looking forward to unlocking more performance in the next few rounds.
FIA F3’s next event is at Red Bull Ring in Austria on the 1-2 of July.
Image: Formula Motorsport Limited
