27/08/2010
NEWS STORY
Racing Engineering - Christian Vietoris (8th) Dani Clos (14th)
Racing Engineering had a challenging first day at the historic Spa-Francorchamps circuit today. Changing weather conditions marked both sessions of the day and heavy rain, little visibility and the resulting yellow and red flags marked free practice as well as qualifying. With Spa being less than an hour's drive from his home in Germany, Christian Vietoris almost felt like he was at a home race and continued his form from the Hungaroring. Although he suffered from the four red flags in qualifying, seeing each of his fast laps being destroyed, the German in the Racing Engineering car managed to claim 5th position on the grid for tomorrow's feature race. Dani Clos, after an excellent morning session where he finished in second, set the 12th fastest time in the afternoon.
Atrocious weather conditions welcomed the GP2 field at Spa Francorchamps when everyone returned to action after the summer break. While the morning's free practice session started on a dry track, heavy rain set in from the middle of the session, which was red flagged ten minutes from the end. However, the drivers of the Spanish team were very competitive. Dani set the second fastest time, with Christian finishing in sixth.
The weather had it's part to play in afternoon qualifying as well. When the GP2 field was about to start it's session, light rain set in, which within minutes turned into a heavy shower. After just three minutes, and without any driver having set a lap time yet, the session had to be red flagged due to the heavy rain falling on the mythical Belgian track. Dani Clos was one of the drivers who had an early setback in the session. Too much humidity on the spark plugs resulted in a misfire with the engine, which was not running correctly. Although Racing Engineering did everything possible to protect the engine before the session and Mecachrome being quick at trying to solve the problem, the heavy rain made this task difficult. Christian, on the other hand, joined the session after the first red flag and set the second fastest time. When Razia spun off the track, the session was stopped for a second time.
At the restart, Christian was fifth, and Dani, who had a smoothly running engine now, set the 10th fastest time immediately on his first timed lap. But another accident resulted in another red flag with just 10 minutes to go in the session. Both Racing Engineering drivers were on their flying laps, significantly improving their sector times until the red flag was shown for the third time and resulted in them having to finish their lap times in the pit lane, instead of crossing the finish line.
At the restart, Herck was quick at setting the fastest lap time and Dani climbed up to 8th position. Christian dropped back to 15th, while strictly sticking to the newly introduced rule of not to improve the lap time when there is a yellow flag shown on track. Another accident, this time involving Zaugg, caused the fourth and last red flag with just five minutes to go. The drivers had only one more flying lap left and, when the lights turned green for the last time, Christian Vietoris made the most out of his last attempt and set the fifth fastest time of the session. Dani, on the other hand, improved his lap time as well, but the Spaniard was held up by a slower car in front of him and could not show his entire potential and finished the session in 12th place.
Christian Vietoris: "This was a tough session. With the amount of red flags and the new rule of not improving one's lap time if there was a yellow flag anywhere, I always had to abort my laps. There was a bit of panic then as I was only in 15th position, which didn't reflect our speed at all. So it was a bit of "all or nothing" on my last lap and I took some risks. But I still had to be careful enough to finish the lap, which was actually my first fast lap of the session. Therefore 5th position is not bad at all. For tomorrow, we need to see what the weather will be like, but I think a podium finish is possible."
Dani Clos: "We were held up for quite some time at the beginning of the session by an engine problem. I was confident as we did a good job in free practice. But it was only on the last lap when I was able to really improve my time, but even then, I found a slower car in front of me. So I couldn't complete any clean laps, which is a shame as we were fast. But it's a good track to overtake and we will do our beat, like always."
Alfonso de Orleans - Borbon, President of Racing Engineering: "With today's rain, qualifying was a real lottery and anyone could have been on pole or in last position. I think both our drivers had the speed to be at the very top, but the weather conditions, bad visibility and the amount of red flags were hampering their attempts. The team and the drivers have done a great job today, but now let's prepare for the race for tomorrow."
Super Nova - Luca Filippi (15th) Marcus Ericsson (24th)
A torrential downpour just prior to qualifying saw all the GP2 cars making last minute changes and fitting wet tyres, ready to fight in treacherous conditions on the Spa circuit. Marcus made a promising start and was in P2 after a few laps, with Luca steadily improving. The session was then repeatedly interrupted by yellow and red flags - with the majority of cars struggling to get a clean lap in. When the final red flag was lifted the drivers effectively had one lap to improve their times. Luca managed to do this, even with losing a substantial amount of time due to traffic but unfortunately a mistake by Marcus saw him tumble down the order in the dying moments.
Luca Filippi: "We were very fast today. We made some changes on the set up and the car was really driveable and really fast. The problem was that with all the yellow and red flags I just had one proper flying lap with traffic, I don't like to make excuse, and I have to say that my car was brilliant. The point is that we just couldn't set a proper lap. We can see from the data that we were good to go one second faster no problem. If there's rain tomorrow or if it's dry, we are ready to be strong for the race."
Marcus Ericsson: "Straight out the box it was very good, the car was perfect and I could feel I had a lot of pace. After that it was just yellow flags and red flags every time we were out. I didn't have another lap without a yellow flag until the very last lap, and on that lap I tried a bit too hard and went off two times I think and couldn't improve my lap time. It was a real shame because as I said before, the was very good and I think we could have been right up there."
David Sears - Team Principal: "With high expectations for Spa this weekend, the Super Nova team were really disappointed with the end result after qualifying. Admittedly the session was stopped originally due to torrential rain conditions and then resumed and indeed was a bit of a lottery. In the end Luca Filippi ended up fourteenth. Marcus Ericsson, having been P2 on his first timed lap ended up slipping down and down. With many yellow flags Marcus unfortunately slipped back to P21 and so has a lot of work to do tomorrow. Luca can hopefully have a good race and finish in the top eight and at least score some points for the team this weekend."
Scuderia Coloni - Alvaro Parente (16th) Vladimir Arabadzhiev (22nd)
It was an unlucky Qualifying session in Spa-Francorchamps for Scuderia Coloni. Things were looking good after the morning Free Practice, with Alvaro Parente posting the third fastest laptime right on his GP2 comeback, showing that the car was competitive also on the wet track.
Then, in the afternoon, Qualifying became a lottery due to the weather conditions: the Race Direction had to stop the session just a few minutes after the green light due to an heavy rain shower, and things stayed like that for more than 20 minutes. Then the red flag was exposed another three times due to drivers crashing and the yellow flags were waved very often by the marshals. In those conditions Parente didn't have a real chance to improve his laptimes for nearly the whole session. After the last suspension there was time for just one flying lap and Alvaro went for it: he posted a great time in the first sector and was the best of the pack in S3, but a mistake in turn 8 meant losing more than 1"5 in Sector 2. His final time was 2'17"798, meaning P16 on tomorrow's grid.
Vladimir Arabadzhiev will start from P23 after crashing at nearly half-session, luckily without any consequence for the driver himself. Before the crash he was performing well and in the morning practice he had showed a pace that could have been good for the top ten.
Trident Racing - Adrian Zaugg (17th) Johnny Cecotto (21st)
The GP2 Main Series finally got back underway at Spa-Fancorchamps, at the end of the championship's short summer break. As usually happens at the venue, the weather turned bad, with a thick rain compromising the results of practice and qualifying. The morning session ended ten minutes earlier due to rain and, in the afternoon, things didn't change much, with several red flags for rain and crashes. The session proved extremely difficult. Johnny Cecotto ended up in 18th, while Adrian Zaugg closed his day early with an off-track exit, and settled for 19th.
Cecotto's day ended on an equally unlucky note. The Venezuelan lost the whole practice session due to gearbox woes and, in qualifying, his runs were conditioned by heavy traffic and red flags. Zaugg, who ran at the top of the timesheets early, ended up off-track with 7 minutes to go, while sitting in 7th.
The Spa weekend is set to continue tomorrow with Race 1, starting at 15:40 and run on a 26-lap distance. The weekend's sprint race, scheduled for Sunday, will kick-off at 10:35 AM, on a 18-lap distance. Tomorrow's race will be televised in Italy by RaiSport.
Johnny Cecotto: "If I have to define today's qualifying, it's been chaotic, at least. The car ran good, but each time I took off from the pits I found myself in a mayhem. When I was slowing down to get a clear lap, I got passed, when I was pushing, I kept finding slower cars in front. When I finally got the chance to put together a decent flying lap, a red flag came out. In such conditions, some good luck is needed to clock a good lap. Unfortunately, I got no help today."
Adrian Zaugg: "I'm sorry for how qualifying ended up, because we had everything to perform great. The session had a good start, despite all the chaos due to rain and interruptions. When I managed to complete some flying laps, times were good. Unfortunately, conditions were really tough, and it just took one kerb hit too hard to make me losing control. I hope to get some spots back tomorrow, though starting at the opposite end of the grid would have helped."