Podium finish augurs well for Jazeman's season

JAZEMAN Firhan Jaafar is fast and he is fifth in the Formula BMW Europe championship standings but he has chosen to play it down.

The 16-year-old will next travel to Monaco after registering his first ever podium finish in the European series in the opening round in Barcelona on Saturday, and he looks to have put behind him the agony of last year's troubled season.

He stands fifth with 32 points, thanks to his third and seventh places in the two races held as support races for the F1 Spanish Grand Prix over the weekend, and is 24 points behind leader Luiz Felipe Nasr of Brazil.

Jazeman started off with fastest lap times in free practice, just as he did on the Catalunya Circuit in the first pre-season tests in March and still holds the fastest lap times on the Spanish track among the Formula BMW drivers this season.

The series moves to what is respected as a true driver's circuit around the streets of Monaco in two weeks, where Jazeman will know that a good qualifying time will prove to take him a long way.
What he needs to do is stay faster than the pack not only at the start of the weekend but throughout. Which is usually easier said than done.

But the 2007 Formula BMW Asia champion should already be confident about his prospects with new team Eifelland, after a troubled season with the Am-Holzer-Rennsport last year which saw him finish 15th in the championship.

Already, a top five finish in the championship looks quite possible.

Championship standings: 1 Luiz Felipe Nasr (Bra) Eurointernational 56 points, 2 Michael Christensen (Den) Mucke Motorsport 54, 3 Daniel Juncadella (Spa) Eurointernational 36, 4 Robin Frijns (Ned) Josef Kaufmann Racing 36,5 Jazeman Firhan Jaafar (Mas) Eifelland 32, 6 David Mengesdorf (Ger) Eifelland 28 7 Javier Tarancon (Spa) DAMS-SAS 16, 8 Jim Pla (Fra)_DAMS 15, 9 Jack Harvey (Bri) Fortec 12, 10 Kazeem Manzur (Bri) Josef Kaufmann Racing 10.