NEWS
The Rain in Spain Causes Havoc at Motorland
2010-04-17
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P1 Motorsport endured a tough race at the first round of the 2010 Formula Renault 3.5 championship, when heavy rain fell over the Motorland circuit prior to qualifying for Saturday’s race.
Both drivers had shown much potential during Friday’s practice sessions, and qualifying the following morning saw both cars running well as the session progressed. However, a late red-flag prevented P1 drivers Walter Grubmuller Jr and Jan Charouz from setting their fastest times on new tyres, leaving the duo in 12th and 19th respectively.
Heavy rain continued to fall over Motorland Aragon, ensuring the teams and drivers prepared for a wet afternoon, and when the lights went out at the start of the race, the 24-car field powered down to the first corner in a cloud of spray - remarkably all making it through without contact. At the end of lap one, Grubmuller was in 16th position, just ahead of team mate Charouz in 17th.
The conditions were proving tricky for all drivers and by lap five, the safety car had been deployed so that Julian Leal’s (International Draco Racing) stranded car could be cleared from the circuit. Both P1 drivers were making good progress, but shortly after the re-start, a car spun on braking, and clipped the Czech driver’s rear wing. Unfortunately the contact was too heavy to continue, and Charouz was forced to retire from ninth position.
It proved to be a race of attrition, with Grubmuller one of only 10 drivers classified when the chequered flag waved. The Austrian driver had been running in ninth position until two laps before the end, when he spun off the circuit and was unable to get the P1 car back onto the track. Nevertheless, Grubmuller was able to score P1’s first point of the year.
Jan Charouz commented on his first race in the World Series by Renault: “I’m very disappointed - even though I did what I could today, we had a lot of bad luck. It started in qualifying, when I pitted for new tyres, my rivals started to post their fastest times, and then when I wanted to get back on track, the session was red-flagged, so I lost the chance to improve my time. This afternoon’s race conditions were horrible – I couldn’t see anything. Still, I was running quite well, but someone spun into me and damaged my rear wing. I hope we will have a better time of it tomorrow.”
Walter Grubmüller Jr. said: “It was a crazy race - in some places there was a centimeter of standing water on the track! I am very happy that I won the first point, despite the mistake I made at the end of the race. In any case, I had a lot of small moments and it was 45 minutes of hard work in the cockpit. But the result is a great encouragement to me before Sunday's race. I hope I will be able to improve my result also in tomorrow’s qualifying”.
