Carlin rookie Sam Abay set an
impressive 4th fastest time in qualifying for race one on his first visit to
the Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit, before being one of five drivers penalised
for recording their quickest lap whilst a caution flag was being displayed on
the circuit. With the penalty sending
Abay to the rear of the grid for race one and starting 10th on the grid in race
two, what had started as a strong weekend quickly turned to a test of character
for the youngster.
"This is my first time driving
on the full Grand Prix circuit at Brands Hatch and I love the track. Obviously the qualifying penalty has been
extremely costly, but that's behind us and we just need to get on with the job
and charge from the back." said the Australian.
Sunny skies greeted the grid of 27
competitors for race one of the weekend.
Abay wasted no time beginning a
stunning charge through the field when the lights went out. By the end of lap one the youngster had
already passed five cars. By lap two,
the Australian had moved ahead of Sebastian Hohenthal, the following lap  past
Stefan Wilson, Salman Al Khalifa
and Viktor Jensen. Three laps into the
race the Australian had already moved up to 17th position and set about closing
the gap to Steven Guerrero. By lap 6
that task had been completed and he stormed past Columbian as well as Jonathan Legris, and Jay Bridger the following lap. Now 14th Abay gained another position as Max
Chilton crashed out and with another successful pass on Ricardo Teixeira, Abay
found himself in 12th position having gained an impressive 14 places in 11
laps. However it was there that the
Australian's charge was halted, with a yellow flag brought out when Alistair
Jackson suffered a heavy accident exiting Surtees bend. The field circulated behind the safety car
for several laps before officials decided the situation called for the race to
be red flagged, with Abay classified 12th.
"Yellow flags haven't been kind
to us this weekend, but I thought our luck
had changed when the yellow came out during the
race. We were already up
to 12th and I thought we'd probably
be a reasonable chance to get into the top 10 and salvage some points if they
got the race restarted quickly.
Unfortunately the situation was more
serious than we realised and called for the race to be stopped. We all have our fingers crossed that Alistair
has escaped serious injury."
Team principal Trevor Carlin added,
"Sam demonstrated some great overtaking moves. It's disappointing that the race ended under
a red flag, but we understand that safety is the priority and hope that Ali is
ok."
Race two proved a less eventful
affair, Abay moving from 10th to 9th off the grid and latching onto the back of
Sebastian Hohenthal. With no further
passing amongst the top ten, the Australian would gather another two places
when Brendon Hartley and Marcus Ericsson retired from the race allowing him to
salvage 7th place from a challenging weekend.
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