25/08/2006
NEWS STORY
Piquet Sports - Nelson Piquet Jr Pole
Nelson Piquet Jr has secured pole position for tomorrow's GP2 feature race at the Istanbul Park Circuit in Turkey, his fifth pole of the season. The result also nets him
two points, reducing the gap between himself and Lewis Hamilton to just nine points, with four races to go.
The day started perfectly with Nelson recording the fastest time in this morning's free practice session. He completed 15 laps of testing, setting a time of 1:36.753.
When it came to qualifying, Nelson set the fastest time on his first flying lap with a 1:34.741, nearly a second ahead of the opposition. Although lap times fell throughout the session, and Jose Maria Lopez set a time just 0.004 second slower than Nelson, no-one could top his time, and so he will take pole for tomorrow's 34-lap Turkish GP2 feature race, which will begin at 4pm local time.
Nelson Piquet Jr: "Everything was good today. As usual our first set of tyres were perfect and I did a good lap but we couldn't get quicker. It was a little bit tense at the end but thank god everything finished well. The track here is really good and I'm really looking forward to the race tomorrow now."
Super Nova International - Jose Maria Lopez 2nd Fairuz Fauzy 25th
This morning's free practice saw Jose Maria Lopez suffer a failed clutch sensor towards the end of the 30 minutes, which the team had to resolve before qualifying. Fairuz Fauzy patiently waiting for 12 minutes before joining the circuit, this track renowned for being quicker as the session proceeds. Unfortunately Fairuz was still unable to get to grips with the track, getting caught up in traffic, finishing at the back. Team mate Jose Maria Lopez on the other hand showed incredible speed, and although a yellow flag held him up when Tahinci's car went up in smoke, Jose shot to 2nd position with 3 minutes to go, set for a front row start for tomorrows 4pm race.
Adam Carroll sat P1 to begin with before Giorgio Pantano, and then Nelson Piquet Jnr. who made a 1:34.741 lap which proved quickest of the day.
Team Principal - David Sears: "In hot humid conditions Jose Maria Lopez stormed round the Istanbul Park Circuit in 1:34.745 only 0.004 of a second Nelson Piquet who had been testing at this circuit last week, in a Renault World Series car. Jose is really looking strong for a victory in tomorrows race and has driven extremely well today. Fairuz Fauzy seemed to get stuck in traffic when he was on new tyres & ended up qualifying on the last row on the grid, along side Petrov the Russian driver. Hopefully Fairuz can overcome his practice problems to drive a strong race from the back of the grid. "
Racing Engineering - Adam Carroll 6th Javier Villa 19th
It was a day of conflicting emotions in the Racing Engineering garage today: despite strong performances by both Adam Carroll and Javier Villa in free practice and qualifying the team was nonetheless a little downbeat due to events that were out of their control.
Adam put in his usual strong performance in both free practice and qualifying, where he finished seventh and sixth respectively, but his mind was understandably elsewhere as the funeral of his cousin, the former World Youth Equestrian Champion Sherelle Duke, was being held today in their home town of Portadown.
Javi also put in a forceful drive in free practice to finish eleventh, but with a ten place penalty to be handed down as a result of a steward's decision in Budapest any qualifying result would be lost. Accordingly he and his engineers chose to use the session to help set up the car for the race and gain useful information on the handling of the car. He finished nineteenth in the session.
A slightly subdued Alfonso de Orleans Borbon noted after the session: All in all it was not too bad. I possibly expected a little bit more from Javi but we didn't want to push too much; because of the ten place penalty we preferred to just set up for the race. It's a difficult weekend for Adam, so he's actually done very well considering his situation. Overall I'm quite happy, and the boys have done good work; there were no problems with either of the cars, and I'm quite confident for tomorrow's race. I think once Adam has his helmet on he'll be pushing quite hard, and we should be seeing some fairly decent results tomorrow."
Adam Carroll later added: I just tried to focus on the job today, and it wasn't too bad: sixth is a good place to start the race tomorrow. We missed some of practice, and that would have helped with the car I think, because it's a weird circuit to drive, very challenging, with so many quick corners, like the big left one [turn eight] where you're basically flat until the end. Sixth is good, we can have a good race from there, and I'm going to try my hardest, as usual, to get a good result. I think it's going to be a good race."
In a break from a debrief with his engineers, Javier Villa stated: The qualifying session was good; nineteenth, but I wasn't really pushing the tyres because we want to keep some new ones for the race. The car is a little better here, and in free practice we could go really fast, and now in qualifying we had a car that was set up more for the race. But I'm quite happy because tomorrow we can do twenty laps, really constant, no problem."
Trident Racing - Andreas Zuber 11th Gimmi Bruni 12th
Both Trident Racing drivers are in the middle of the starting grid at the end of Istanbul qualifying. Andreas Zuber could be in row three but another driver spun just in front of him exactly during his best lap. Gimmi Bruni complained a hard oversteer and a problem with the fuel pick up.
Gimmi Bruni: "During the whole session I had to fight against an hard oversteer. But, while exiting the turn number eight, because of a fuel pick up problem, the car was turning off as well. We are now trying to fix this problem which, by itself, cost me half a second each lap. Which means that even with the oversteer I could have reached the third row. It's a pity, but this is a great track so tomorrow I will do my best to gain positions."
Andreas Zuber: "I should be happier if I could have finished my fastest lap without problems. But during that lap another driver just spun in front of me so I had to lift the throttle losing half a second and the third row. Anyway, watching the things from an optimistic point of view, at the end of the day the eleventh position is not that bad. Tomorrow I will have the chance to finish in the points."