Sunday, 20 May 2012 11:43

Istanbul Park Circuit, Turkey

Sunday 08th May 2011

Davide Valsecchi; P16
Luiz Razia; P18

An eventful GP2 race in Istanbul today saw Team AirAsia struggle with tyre degradation. After a strong start from third on the grid Luiz Razia battled to keep position, unable to challenge he dropped back to finally complete the 23 lap race in eighteenth place.  Davide Valsecchi made up an impressive nine places in the early stages of the race but unfortunately his good fortune turned when he too began to suffer with the tyres mid race. The Italian eventually finished sixteenth. Now the team will review race strategy, with tyre preservation in mind ahead of round two in Barcelona in two weeks time.

Here is Team Manager Phill Spencer, Davide Valsecchi, Luiz Razia, and Chief Engineer Humphrey Corbett.

Team Manager Phill Spencer: “It has definitely been a lesson learned today. We started this morning very optimistic after a positive day yesterday, but in the end today’s results are very disappointing. Looking at the other teams’ performances, we must have done something wrong, so we need to rethink set up and strategy, go from there and move on ready for round two in Barcelona. ”

Davide Valsecchi (Best time 1:39.536/ P16): “The severity of the tyre condition surprised us somewhat today. Everything had been going well. We had a good start and gained a lot of places to move up to seventh place and I was thinking we could finish in the points, but unfortunately this wasn’t the case. We will need to work hard to solve this issue with the tyres, and focus on race performance ahead of Barcelona. I am confident we have a good qualifying car so we need to focus on the race, make sure we can save the tyres and hopefully fight for the podium in Barcelona.”

Luiz Razia (Best time 1:39.244 / P18): “It was early on in the race that I felt the car was not very consistent. I lost a place at the start and again mid race when Sam Bird passed me - this battle really worked the tyres and I just couldn’t keep him off. The period under the safety car also didn’t help our situation with the tyres, the drop off was really big so we will need to look through all the data thoroughly and see where we can improve. It’s not been a good day for us today, but on the plus side, we collected three points here yesterday and we know we have a good car for qualifying. We need to focus on race performance now and ready ourselves for Barcelona.”

Chief Engineer Humphrey Corbett: “We are still puzzled with today’s performances as we thought we had tyre usage covered, but it seems we have been caught unawares - lack of experience perhaps. We have shown we are up there and competitive in qualifying, but today has highlighted that we lack a little in the races. So for the future we will learn from this, change our strategy for Barcelona, and look ahead to the next race in a couple of weeks time.”

Next Race: Barcelona, Spain 20th – 22nd May 2011

Sunday, 20 May 2012 11:43

Rookie Lewis Williams continued his impressive form by topping the final session of GP3 post-season testing at Circuit Estoril today. The Atech CRS GP driver posted the quickest time of afternoon 1:31.230.

There were two new drivers and a few seat swaps for the final day of testing today in Portugal: GP3 Series welcomed Gabriel Chaves and Oli Webb to the paddock.

American driver Chaves jumped in to the #2 ART Grand Prix car in place of Matias Laine, and Brit Webb replaced GP3 regular Ivan Lukashevich at Status GP. Adrian Tambay was back in his Manor car, Dean Smith was testing for Status GP, Adriano Buzaid replaced Roberto Merhi at Addax Team, and Aaro Vainio took over from Doru Sechealriu at Tech 1 Racing.

Once again the GP3 drivers were treated to blue skies when they hit the track in Portugal this morning. It was Adrien Tambay who finished the session on top, but rookie Williamson impressed once. The Atech CRS GP driver continued his fast pace from yesterday and posted the second quickest time of 1:31.098, just 0.125 seconds behind the more experienced and GP3 race winner Tambay. Nigel Melker and Pedro Nunes were third and fourth quickest ahead of Chaves - the American posting impressive lap times during his first outing in the car.

By the afternoon the young guns continued their strong form, with Robin Frijns, Williamson, and Mitch Evans all running in the top spots for the majority of the session. After a frantic shootout on new tyres during the dying minutes of the session it was the Brit who came out on top, but only just -Frijns was hot on his heels and just 0.013 seconds behind. Smith settled in well at Status GP and finished third ahead of Chaves and James Colado. Evans ended the session sixth. RSC Mücke
Motorsport's Andrina Gugger was unable to take part in either session today after injuring her hand in yesterday's afternoon session.

After three days of testing the thirty young drivers were all getting used to their new cars, and there were just four red flags during the final sessions. Reliability was also exceptional: Over the three-days the drivers completed 6,269 laps between them, totalling 26,217 kilometres.

GP3 Series Technical Director Didier Perrin commented: "This is what you call a trouble free test session. The reliability this week in Estoril has been very impressive for all of the teams. Not a single car has stopped out on track due to reliability issues and we have encountered only very minor glitches with the thirty cars."

The GP3 cars will be back on track next week in Jerez for the second post-season test. Once again all thirty cars will run for three days on 20th-22nd  October.

Morning session times:

Pos      Car #      Team                        Driver                      Laps    Time
1        7          Manor Racing                Adrien Tambay               40      1:30,973
2        31         Atech CRS GP                Lewis Williamson            44      1:31,098
3        10         RSC Muecke                  Nigel Melker                39      1:31,122