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Racing Engineering - GP2 Spa Qualification |
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Friday, 14 September 2007 |
It was a good day’s work for the two Racing Engineering drivers in what was their
maiden run on the difficult Belgian track of Spa Francorchamps. Without making any
mistakes and improving on each lap, Javier Villa ended up taking a spot on the seventh
row for the feature race, while Marcos will be starting tomorrow from 25th position after
running steadily throughout the day.
Both Javier Villa and Marcos Martínez completed a good number of laps in today’s
two
practice sessions, focusing on learning a track that was totally new for both of
them.
However they couldn’t do as much as they would have liked in the morning
free practice
session that was red flagged following an accident to another
competitor. Unfortunatelythis meant that part of the work planned for this first
session would haveto be carried out
in the crucial 30 minutes of qualification.
On a track such as Spa, the longest of the series at more than 7 kilometres in
length, the
number of laps you can do in every session is, logically, less than usual
and this means
always having a lot of traffic problems. Add to this the fact that
the track length also hasquite an influence on tyre wear, with optimum grip in their
two first laps out of the pits
only, the challenge for the two Spanish drivers at the
wheel of their Repsol andTelefónica backed Dallaras wasn’t easy. So bearing all
that in mind their performanceswere satisfying. Javi managed to improve his
morning’s best lap time by one and a half
seconds, gaining 14th position, while
Marcos achieved his main target, to run as muchas possible, not making mistakes
and gathering experience in driving the GP2 car on the
difficult track in the
Ardennes forest.
In this way, the team achieved their first goal of the weekend: to give the drivers
the
maximum possible track time in order to learn a track that was new to both of
them and
where experience is key to getting a good result. Indeed a good result
is something they
will be looking for tomorrow in the feature race; with 26 laps
this will be quite a challenge,
especially as regards tyre wear, a factor that could
be crucial to the final outcome.
Alfonso D'Orleans (team principal):
"With both our drivers never having raced on thistrack, we knew they both had to
first become familiar with this challenging circuit. ForMarcos the goal was to learn
as much as possible, and he did that well. As for Javi, he
will start 14th and
if everything goes well tomorrow, we should see him in the points.”
Javier Villa (driver car 14): “In the morning, even if I didn’t know the track, I
was going
well and I could still improve by a few tenths but the session was red
flagged. In
qualifying I pushed and ended up 14th, far better than the morning
times. It’s a track that
will be difficult for the race, the tyres only work well for
two laps, and then there is a big
loss of grip. That will make the race more difficult;
let’s see where we can finish."
Marcos Martínez (driver car 15): ”In free practice I have been learning the
track but
then out went the red flag when I was starting my second spell and
I couldn’t run as
much as I’d have liked. In qualifying I didn’t get a good
position as the car was
pretty nervous at the back and I couldn’t push
harder. Let’s hope we can finish
the race tomorrow and improve the car’s setup
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