23/08/2008
NEWS STORY
DAMS - Jérôme d'Ambrosio (5th) Kamui Kobayashi (25th)
Today, the first of the weekend's two GP2 Series races (the 8th round of the championship) took place on the new Valencia circuit in Spain, which is hosting the European F1 Grand Prix.
Kamui Kobayashi and Jérôme d'Ambrosio met with varying fortunes, as the Japanese driver who started from 25th spot had to retire on lap 1 after a collision. The Belgian fought his way back to the front-runners after losing some places early on. Thanks to a steady drive and a daring strategy, he finished 5th scoring some more points that have helped him move up several positions in the drivers' championship.
Eric Boullier, team manager: "Today, Jérôme showed how much he's progressed since the start of the season. He had to fight hard and he never lost contact with the leaders. His fifth place is a great reward for the work he's done over the past few weeks. Kamui's race was over after a few metres. He was hit on lap one: the collision was not his fault and he could do absolutely nothing to avoid it. But that's the risk when you start from the back of the grid. We're optimistic for tomorrow and Jérôme will be gunning for a rostrum finish."
Jérôme d'Ambrosio: "I'm very happy with this result, my best in GP2. I made a good start. The team's excellent strategy helped me to gain a place, and then I made it a point of honour to keep up the pace to take advantage of race incidents. The final twists of the event helped me gain two places and then lose one. Finally, I scored four points and I'll do my best to continue in the same vein tomorrow."
Kamui Kobayashi: "I was harpooned just after the start and that was that. It's been a very diff icult weekend so far, and scoring points tomorrow will be impossible. I'll use the second race to rack up the kilometres on this track to help me get to grips with it better in the future."
iSport International - Bruno Senna (9th) Karun Chandhok (15th)
The opening GP2 Series race on the new Valencia street circuit ended in peculiar fashion this afternoon. Several cars ran out of fuel on the final lap, including the Racing Engineering car of leader Giorgio Pantano and the two iSport entries of Bruno Senna and Karun Chandhok.
Senna slowed just after passing the struggling Pantano for fourth, while Chandhok was fighting back from a drive-through pit penalty - awarded after he was adjudged to have rejoined the race in an unsafe manner - and was chasing Luca Filippi for what eventually became eighth place.
Bruno Senna: "These things happen. I was really happy with my pace in the opening stages of the race - I pulled off several strong passing moves, settled into a good rhythm and things were going well.
"I had no warning at all about the fuel problem. If the engine had spluttered during the previous lap I'd have backed off, because I had plenty I hand over the next car, but it cut very suddenly and that was that. I'm not too despondent, though: Giorgio and I both suffered the same problem, the title race remains wide open and I'm confident I can score a good result tomorrow."
Karun Chandhok: "I really don't feel I deserved the drive-through penalty. Earlier this season Lucas di Grassi rejoined a race in exactly the same manner as I did today, right in front of Bruno, in fact, but that went unpunished and I honestly don't think I did anything wrong. That's life, though.
"The car definitely felt good today, but after the penalty I spent most of the race passing slower traffic and wasn't able to exploit it fully. I was catching Filippi quite easily towards the end and felt confident I'd be able to pass him on the final lap. As it turns out that would have put me on pole tomorrow, but instead I'll now be 15th - a frustrating end to a frustrating race."
DPR - Diego Nunes (10th) Michael Herck (12th)
The David Price Racing (DPR) racing team had their first taste of the new venue for this season, a street circuit in the Spanish city of Valencia. With drivers Diego Nunes and Michael Herck having no previous experience of the track, and the first GP2 event on a street circuit for Herck, both drivers had their best Feature race results of the season so far. Nunes recorded 10th place and Herck 12th place at the finish.
The limited track time allowed for the GP2 Series at each event, supporting the Formula One World Championship, favours the more experienced GP2 drivers, so the two DPR rookies were lying back down the order in the first two sessions, with Nunes posting 20th quickest lap in qualifying, and Herck further back with 26th fastest time.
The Feature race held today followed the Formula One qualifying session with warm temperatures and potential rain holding off. The drama started on the first lap with the field of cars fighting for track position through the initial sequence of corners. Both Nunes and Herck avoided sliding cars and gained position to cross the line in 15th and 18th places respectively after the opening lap. Further incidents on the second lap brought out the safety car for one lap of formation racing, before the field were released to return to full power. Nunes remained in 15th, with Herck improving to 17th, and both maintained position for the next few laps.
The mandatory pitstop window opened and some of the field began to come in for new tyres, while others stayed out longer, but by the time all the cars had pitted, including two clean stops for the DPR drivers, Nunes was lying in 13th place and Herck in 16th position.
As the laps counted down Nunes began to be challenged for position by Karun Chandhok and was forced to defend hard with the Indian driver finally passing on lap 24. A slide into the barriers by Andy Zuber kept Nunes in 13th place, with Herck improving to 15th position. With two laps remaining Alvaro Parente retired, and on the final lap leader Giorgio Pantano ran out of fuel as well as Chandhok, so the two young rookies improved to 10th and 12th, to take the chequered flag in these places.
Against the backdrop of the dockland harbour area the inaugural GP2 Series event at Valencia produced close racing, and plenty of excitement. While other more experienced drivers succumbed to the unique track, Nunes and Herck both completed the race distance to set themselves up for a good race tomorrow, taking their finish positions for the start.
David Price, Team Principal, summed up the weekend so far, saying "Both drivers had clean races while many others weren't able to do that, and it was good to scrape into the top ten. We need to capitalise on the finish positions for tomorrow's Sprint distance. It's not an easy track to master, but if they can keep it clean at the start there's potential for two good finishes."
Racing Engineering - Giorgio Pantano (14th) Javier Villa (DNF)
It was almost the perfect day for Giorgio Pantano and Racing Engineering in today's Feature Race on the exciting new Valencia street circuit as the Italian took the lead at the start and proceeded to dominate the race until with just a few corners to go his car slowed dramatically and pulled off the track.
As the cars took to the track for the formation lap a few drops of rain were falling but fortunately for all the teams the rain stopped as the lights went out and the race got underway. Giorgio made a great getaway from pole position and took the lead into the first corner, he immediately began to pull away from the other cars and at the end of the first lap he was an amazing 2.45 seconds ahead of Petrov. Unfortunately for Giorgio an accident between Kobayashi and Tung say the Safety Car briefly deployed until the damaged cars were removed.
As the race got under way again Giorgio immediately began to push hard in the Repsol and Telefónica backed car pulling away from Petrov at nearly a second a lap for the next three laps but the Russian driver slowly began to reduce the gap and by lap 11 it was 1.7 seconds. Lap 13 saw Petrov make his mandatory pit stop leaving Giorgio with a 3.8 second lead over Maldonado but on the next lap Giorgio made his stop and he was able to resume the track still ahead of Petrov following the usual very efficient tyre change from the Spanish team.
Over the next few laps Giorgio gradually opened out the gap again to 1.6 seconds and then, as the fuel load lightened, he began to press harder setting the fastest lap of the race so far on lap 19 with a time of 1m 47.540s. It now appeared as if Petrov was unable to challenge Giorgio and the Italian wisely held the gap at a couple of seconds in order to not risk making a mistake and also to not use too much fuel as all the teams were aware this was a potential problem on this new circuit.
With only two laps to go it seemed that Giorgio and Racing Engineering were heading for another great victory as Giorgio set the fastest lap of the race at 1m 46.791s. Suddenly, half way round the final lap, Petrov was suddenly closing in quickly on Giorgio as he slowed dramatically and within a couple of corners he was forced to pull off the track. It appeared that the Dallara had run out of fuel although, since it had been filled to the maximum before the start, it was very bad luck on both the driver and the team. Fortunately for Giorgio his main rival in the Championship, Bruno Senna, also ran out of fuel on the last lap and finished out of the points so Giorgio retains his Championship lead. If both Giorgio and Senna had not had their last lap problems Giorgio would have significantly increased his Championship lead over the Brazilian, as it is the gap remains unchanged.
For Javier Villa it was a race to forget as an incident on the first lap when he made contact with a concrete wall saw him retire from the race. For tomorrow's Sprint Race Giorgio will start 14th and he will be looking to try and gain as many places as possible and score some points, whilst for Javier it will be a case of doing the best he can from 21st on the grid on what, so far, has been a difficult weekend for the young Spaniard.
Alfonso de Orleans Borbón (team principal): "I am highly disappointed by GP2 in regards to the race length, which could have been shortened by one lap. Our rules do not permit us to refill during the race and we already did everything we could to reduce the fuel consumption. It's a real shame as we lost 11 very precious points today. Nevertheless I want to thank all the team and Giorgio for the great job they did. It was a great race, but destroyed by the fact of improper calculations beyond our scope."
Javier Villa: "It's a difficult weekend. I thought I could be faster, but it's difficult. The qualifying was going better than free practice and we had the problem located. I thought that I could do a really strong race today and also had a good start, but a contact in lap 1 meant an early end to my race keeping me from showing what would have been possible today."
Giorgio Pantano: "We did our best today and I still can't believe what has happened. Everybody knew about the fuel consumption problem. We didn't pass through the pit lane, but went straight to the grid. We didn't do any practice start and also had a safety car. It is actually impossible to realize that we didn't finish the race. It is really unbelievable what has happened today. And I am not just talking about myself, but also others. Do 32 instead of 34 laps, if you know about this problem. We did a perfect race and not only did I lose the win, but also the point for fastest lap."
Durango - Davide Valsecch (DNF) Alberto Valerio (DNF)
A Valencia feature race to forget for both Durango drivers. Alberto Valerio slipped on the oil lost by another crashed car and hit the wall. He has been able to come back to the pit lane but the damage forced him to retire. Davide Valsecchi, some laps later, pitted because of an hydraulic problem which was fixed towards the end of the race. So, under the chequered flag he has been the first of the not classified. Tomorrow, Race 2 will be very hard.
Trident Racing - Mike Conway (DNF) Ho Pin Tung (DNF)
The first race of the GP2 Main Series weekend at Valencia Street Circuit was one of the shortest ever for Trident Racing. Ho Pin Tung was stopped by the consequences of a crash happened shortly after the start, while Mike Conway's run was halted after just 2 laps due to a clutch problem. The double DNF scored today will force both of them to start from the back tomorrow on Race 2 (scheduled at 10:30 GMT+2): Mike will take off from 20th place, three spots in front of Ho Pin.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Managing Director: "Today we experienced what it probably was our worst day of the 2008 season, even though I usually don't like to call misfortune into play. Both our drivers were forced to stop in the first two laps: Ho Pin Tung was involved in a crash on lap 1, while Mike Conway was stopped by a minor clutch problem when the hydraulic pump's connector went off, leaving him with a full clutch on. It's a tough end of the season, as we keep not taking advantage of our true potential during the races. In that kind of moments though, it's necessary too keep working head down, and trust the value of our technical package and of our drivers. We're facing a night of work to restore Ho Pin's car, that suffered a damaged gearbox case. We'll be able to line him up for tomorrow's race 2, and provide him with a fully competitive racecar like we always did.
"In terms of strategy, we decided not to turn any pre-grid lap and to line-up directly in order to save fuel, as we knew it would have become an issue. In the end our calculations, though not useful for us, proved right, and several cars had to slow down due to the lack of fuel. We hope to see a rulebook update in the future to prevent teams from facing that kind of issues, and preserve the top-class talent and show always provided by the GP2 Series".