Racing Engineering

26/06/11 5th place for Dani Clos in the Valencia Sprint Race.

Following several post-race penalties applied to other drivers following yesterday’s Feature Race Dani Clos lined up 5th for today’s 23 lap Sprint Race with Christian Vietoris in 19th.....

Following several post-race penalties applied to other drivers following yesterday’s Feature Race Dani Clos lined up 5th for today’s 23 lap Sprint Race with Christian Vietoris in 19th.

As the lights went off both of the Racing Engineering drivers made good starts with Clos holding onto 5th and making a determined effort to pass Van Der Garde into Turn 2. As the cars entered Turn 5 Grosjean spun and two more cars made contact, taking advantage of the confusion Vietoris gained several places and as the Safety Car was deployed the young German was up to 10th place.

The Safety Car was quickly back in the pits and as racing resumed Clos was right on the gearbox of Van Der Garde and on lap 3 Kral in 3rd position made a mistake and Van der Garde and Clos passed the Arden car promoting the Spaniard to 4th. Further back Vietoris in 10th was making determined efforts to pass Mirocha whilst pulling away slightly from Leal.

By lap 12 Clos was having a lonely race in 4th having dropped away to 5 seconds behind Van Der Garde but in turn he was now 3 seconds ahead of Kral.
Vietoris was now 9th and involved in a very hard battle with Mirocha and Leal with just 5 seconds between 5th and 10th. Vietoris gained a further place on lap 15 to take 8th when a car ahead spun out but he lost the position 3 laps later when he was passed by Bianchi and the Racing Engineering car was now under pressure from Leal.

With 4 laps to go Clos was holding off Valsecchi but his pace had dropped off a little and he had to give way to the Italian. Vietoris was still fighting hard with Leal and with the German’s car also losing some of its early speed he lost a place and then with his car slowing he lost several more places in the final laps.

As the chequered flag was shown after 23 hard fought laps Clos took 5th place holding off Herck by 0.2 seconds whilst Vietoris finished a disappointed 13th.

The GP2 teams now move on to Silverstone in two weeks’ time were the Racing Engineering team will be looking to continue their positive progress.

Team Quotes:

Dani Clos: “This was a complicated race. The first lap was very intense and difficult and I had a very good rhythm. But towards the end I suffered from problems with the tyres and was not able to keep up the rhythm. We are very motivated for the races to come and continue with our work.”

Christian Vietoris: “I had a very good start and was able to make up quite a few positions. I was in P8 for some laps when I decided to save the tyres for the final laps of the race. But when I wanted to attack, I saw that it was not possible anymore as my rear tyres were gone. However, we gained good insights and I think I know in which direction we have to work now.”

Thomas Couyotopoulo - Racing Engineering’s Sporting Manager: “Both drivers had good starts and the first part of the race went as planned. They were both in good positions and with a good pace. Unfortunately, we suffered from too high tyre degradation during the last part of the race and the drivers had to fight for their positions. Having both cars finishing the race allows us to work with sufficient data and feedback to analyse the race properly. We have already gained quite a lot of insights and learned from this. We will continue our hard work and concentrate on preparing for the next race weekend in Silverstone now.”