NEWS
Jan Charouz Impresses Despite Exclusion
2010-04-18
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P1 Motorsport came very close to scoring a thrilling podium at the Motorland circuit in Spain, after rookie driver Jan Charouz put in a truly impressive performance in only his second ever Formula Renault 3.5 race, to take second place in Sunday’s feature race. Later, a regulation issue caused the Czech driver to be excluded from the race, but regardless, the P1 Motorsport team showed their 2010 potential and hopefully a sign of good pace to come.
After a disappointing start to the season in Saturday’s wet race, Charouz made up for it by putting his P1 car on the second row for Race Two. Team mate Walter Grubmuller also improved on his first outing, snatching a solid 9th place in qualifying for Sunday’s feature race.
When the lights went out on Sunday afternoon, a sensational start by the Czech driver saw Charouz take the lead into the first corner. Though he was closely followed by Fortec Motorsport’s Sten Pentus, Charouz kept his composure, and began to pull away from the Estonian.
The team made an early call to bring Charouz in for his mandatory pitstop on lap six, which saw the P1 crew get their car back out onto the circuit without incident. From there, the field gradually followed suit, and on lap 12, Pentus pitted from the inherited lead. The Fortec Motorsport car exited the pit lane just ahead of Charouz, however the P1 car had good pace and a solid gap between himself and third place driver Daniel Ricciardo (Tech 1 Racing).
Meanwhile team mate Grubmuller put in another consistent performance to take his second top ten of the weekend, bringing his P1 car across the line to take another points-scoring position.
Unfortunately, Charouz was excluded from the race on account of a technical non-compliance whereby the cars must carry no less than three litres of unused fuel reserve when in the Parc Ferme at the end of qualifying and races.
The exclusion should not however detract from the P1 driver’s performance, as Team Director Roly Vincini added: “Excellent drive by Jan today - he could have taken pole this morning had he managed to get a clear run in qualifying, and his performance in the race this afternoon was very impressive."
Walter Grubmüller Jr. said: “Shortly after my pit stop I damaged my tyres by breaking little bit. It effected car control and I was not able to resist the pressure from my rivals and lost some positions. Nevertheless, I am satisfied with my debut in such a competitive and challenging series.”
The World Series by Renault now moves to the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, for the second round of the championship on 1 - 2 May.
