After battling to score points in the last two rounds, Red Bull Junior Team Driver Daniel Ricciardo and his Carlin team have got back on form and taken two podium places in the latest round of the 2009 Cooper Tires British International Formula 3 Series.

The teams traveled to the fast and flowing Snetterton circuit in Norfolk for rounds 9 and 10 of the championship – the halfway point of the Series.

After a Friday test session headed by the Hitech Racing Dallara Mercedes of series newcomer Renger van der Zande, the Saturday morning qualifying session for Round 9 saw the closest battle for pole position of the season so far.

Once the dust had settled on the 30 minute qualifying session, van der Zande was on top again, but only by 3 thousandths of a second from Carlin team driver Henry Arundel, who was only another 5 thousandths of a second ahead of team mate Max Chilton, with Ricciardo who put on a late charge in the session ended up a further 1/10th of a second behind in fourth!

Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session for round 10 of the series was held in cooler and cloudier conditions and saw the Mercedes powered cars take hold of the front of the grid again, with van der Zande leading the way once more. Ricciardo in the Volkswagen powered Dallara had a late start to the session, but ended up 5th, just 2 hundredths of a second behind his team mate Max Chilton and less than a quarter of a second from pole position.

DANIEL RICCIARDO: “To be honest I was disappointed with the qualifying result for both races. We lacked performance from the start of the weekend on Friday and we hadn’t made any real forward steps for qualifying. We are going to need something special to have a shot at winning the race.”

The first race saw van der Zande lead from start to finish for an easy win, but behind him Ricciardo made a good start to jump to third place initially, shadowing team mate Arundel. On lap 20 of 29, Arundel started having gear selection problems which gave Daniel the opportunity to get past into second place which he immediately consolidated, finishing less than 4 seconds behind the race winner and nearly seven seconds clear of Arundel who hung on to finish third despite his gearbox woes.

Round 10 of the series held on Sunday afternoon heralded another new race winner – the 6th of the season, as Team Fortec’s Riki Christodoulou turned his third place on the grid into a race win after a battle to the flag with Ricciardo.

Pole sitter Renger van der Zande spoilt an otherwise perfect weekend by bogging down at the start of the race and dropping down the field. Walter Grubmüller took the initial lead, with Christodoulou jumping into second and Ricciardo made a brave move and forced his way up the inside of Van der Zande on the run to turn 1, having to take a bit of the grass to get the job done. After three laps Christodoulou made his way past Grubmüller and into the lead. This bunched the pair up and Ricciardo took advantage of the situation and moved past Grubmüller on the outside of the following turn to take over second place.

Ricciardo gave chase to the race leader, but had to keep an eye on his mirrors as his main Championship rival Grubmüller tried to fight back over the remaining laps of the race.

The race ran through to the end in that order, but with the top three only separated at the flag by less than two seconds.

It was a strong result for Daniel Ricciardo and the Carlin Red Bull Junior team which extends their Championship lead to 23 points – almost one complete race win.

DANIEL RICCIARDO: “Race 1 was quite processional. I made a good start and stayed close with my team mate. I knew if I could find a way past I would be able to pull away. Eventually this happened and I then set my personal fastest lap of the race. But this was still 3 tenths of a second from the overall fastest lap. Still some work to do...”

”Race 2 was a lot of fun. I got a very good jump off the line and had to go on the grass to get ahead of Van der Zande who was squeezing me to the edge of the track. I had enough momentum to make the move stick and then set out for Grubmüller two laps later. I had a good slipstream from him down the back straight and went around the outside in the braking for turn 3. It was a bit risky but knew I had to go for it to give myself a winning chance. I tried to stay with Christodoulou but couldn’t get anymore out of myself or the car and 2nd place was the best possible outcome for me. Overall I’m very pleased to bag two 2nd places on a weekend that was looking quite dull on Friday.”

The next event on the calendar sees the teams head to Donnington Park on the 19th of July for Rounds 11 and 12 of the Series. This date replaces the event scheduled for earlier in the season which was postponed due to work at the circuit in preparation for the 2010 British Grand Prix.

The week after, the teams will be in action at the legendary Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium for the next two races. These two back-to-back events mark a critical point in the 2009 British F3 Series and Daniel is hoping to cement his place at the top of the Championship over those consecutive weekends.