30/06/13 4th for Julián Leal and Racing Engineering at today’s Silverstone Sprint Race. The weather was once again perfect at Silverstone for today’s 21 lap Sprint Race...
	The weather was once again perfect at Silverstone for today’s 21 lap Sprint Race with blue skies, an air temperature of 20° and a track temperature of 22°. Following yesterday’s Feature Race Fabio Leimer was given a ten place grid penalty for his collision with Coletti which meant he would start in 15th place, although he kept his 4th place finish and the points he scored. Julián Leal, following his excellent 8th in yesterday’s race, would be starting from pole position and his car was fitted with a new set of the hard Pirelli compound tyres. Julián was a little slow away as the lights went off and he lost two places into the first corner and he lost a further position to Calado in the second corner to finish the first lap in 4th. The Racing Engineering car quickly settled down and the first four cars started to open out a small gap on the rest of the field. An incident to Abt on lap 3 caused a Safety car deployment for one lap and as racing resumed Leal began to put pressure on Calado and by lap 10 the gap was just 0.4 seconds with Dillmann dropping away slightly from the battling duo. Julián continued to attack the ART Grand Prix car with both drivers lapping within a few hundredths of a second of each other and both men had closed in on Haryanto in 2nd place. Over the next 5 laps Julián continued to look for a way to pass Calado but the two cars were so equally matched he had to hope for a mistake from the English driver. With just three laps remaining the gap between Haryanto in second and Julián in 4th was just over one second with Dillmann 1.2 seconds behind in 5th. The young Columbian continued to do everything he could to demote Calado but he had to settle for 4th at the finish just 0.4 seconds away from a podium finish. Fabio’s opening lap was ruined by contact between some cars ahead of him on the opening lap which caused him to lose several places falling back to 22nd at the end of the opening lap. Following the Safety Car incident the Racing Engineering car was running 20th but lost a place to de Jong on lap 4 but Fabio now began to make progress and he was soon ahead of de Jong and Crestani to be 17th by lap 11 and he was now closing in on Evans. On lap 19 Fabio was right with Evans and Trummer and he was able to pass the Rapax car to move up to 15th position but although he closed within 0.2 seconds of Evans at the flag he was unable to make up any more places. A mixed weekend for Racing Engineering at Silverstone this weekend with both drivers scoring a 4th place in the two races and both men showed great race pace once again. The team will head straight for the Nürburgring for the next race weekend in just one week’s time.
	Team Comments: Thomas Couyotopoulo, Sporting Director of Racing Engineering: “Given both our drivers' starting positions, today’s results are disappointing. Julian, unfortunately, lost three positions at the start, but he then drive a strong race with a very good pace. He crossed the line only 4 tenths of a second off the podium. Fabio had a good start, but lost many positions due to the accident between Richelmi and Palmer in front of him. He had to go off track and fought his way back from second last to 15th. We have seen this weekend that we have the pace to be in front in qualifying as well as both races. We have scored points, but definitely less than expected. We will now prepare for Nürburgring to achieve better results.” Fabio Leimer:  “I had a really good start making up positions until Richelmi crashed into Palmer in front of me. In order to avoid a crash myself, I had to go off track and through the grass. Rejoining Canamasas almost crashed into me and with dirty tyres I went off again shortly after. I was at the very back, but after this eventful first lap, things were OK. I didn't want to take any risks and while I had problems at the beginning, I became faster and faster towards the end of the race.  But this wasn't enough as the drivers ahead were already too far away. This wasn't a good weekend, but we at least scored points, which was important as I could reduce my gap to the first drivers in the championship. And even though it was not a really good weekend, we were able to learn some positive things from it. We race at the Nürburgring next weekend and my goal is obviously to score a lot of points there and win. I like the track, was fast there in the past. I am therefore very positive about the upcoming event.” Julián Leal: “It's a pity I lost this opportunity today at the start. I made a big mistake when I was too far from the biting point of the clutch and almost stalled. I lost 3 positions and after that I simply kept my position. It was difficult to attack today as when I was pushing too much behind Calado, my tyres started to suffer, so I drove my race behind him saving them. During the last two laps I once more tried to get by him, but it didn't work out. In general this was a positive weekend as I scored quite a few points getting closer to the top 10 again. We were able to demonstrate during the entire weekend, from free practice until today's race, that we are fast and on the right path. My goal now is to continue like this, make less mistakes and improve with each event.”