Jones finished second and 10th in two races making up the third leg of the series in Beijing, way below his standards considering he ruled the first two races in Batangas and Subic with an iron hand.
Despite his misadventure in Beijing, Jones, lead driver of the Christian Jones Motorsport team, still leads the overall race for the top driver award with 96 points but has allowed his closest pursuer, John O’Hara of Shell Kinetic F3, to close the gap.
O’Hara ruled the first race in Beijing to pick up 20 points and also topped the second race, only to be penalized later for colliding with Jones at the start of the race. O’Hara eventually dropped to sixth in the second race but the six points he gained gave him a total of 86 going into the Indonesian leg of the series sponsored by Denso, Yokohama and Motolite.
Defending champion Mark Goddard of Castrol Team Goddard-Minardi Team Asia bounced back into contention after finishing third and first in the two Beijing races, leaving him with a third-running 56 points.
Asian Formula 3 chairman Ed Peña expects another exciting action especially because the fourth leg of the series will be held at the world-class Sentul International Circuit, designed for Formula 1 racing.
"The track is expected to bring out the best among the drivers, so we can really expect topnotch action," said Peña.
Seven teams will be represented, including Team BRM that will feature 16-year-old Indonesian Zahir Ali who competed in the Karting World Championships earlier this month.
Young gun Dado Peña, Jones’ teammate, will compete in the Formula BMW Asia race in Beijing this weekend and will join the Australian in Indonesia. Another young gun, Tyson Sy, is back driving for Castrol Team Goddard after skipping the Beijing leg. A third driver, Mars Hsieh, will also race for Team Goddard.
Speedtech Asia will also have three drivers — Moreno Soeprapto, Allan Wong and Yoshiki Mashida—while Shell Kinetic will have Pepon Marave and Ananda Mikola racing together with O’Hara.
Richard Joson and Kenkuo Miura will banner Denso Janjin JF3 while brothers Enzo and Don Pastor will drive for Fujitsu 10 Toyota Team Tom’s. The race will be particularly special for Enzo who has been invited to try out for Minardi, one of the teams competing in Formula 1.
