Fabio Leimer and Racing Engineering continue their fight for the 2013 GP2 Series Championship

05/09/13 Fabio Leimer and Racing Engineering continue their fight for the 2013 GP2 Series Championship.

With just three more race weekends left in the 2013 GP2 Series the battle for both the Driver and Team honours...

With just three more race weekends left in the 2013 GP2 Series the battle for both the Driver and Team honours is becoming intense. Racing Engineering’s Fabio Leimer is lying in 3rd place just seven points away from the leader in the Drivers’ Championship and the team are also in 3rd, 28 points behind first place, in the Team standings. With a maximum of 48 points available to the drivers and 78 for the teams at each weekend, both Championships are wide open.

The venue for the final European weekend of the 2013 series is at the historic venue of the Autodromo Nazionale Monza in Italy. This exciting 5.793km circuit, built nearly ninety years ago, has been the venue of the Italian Grand Prix for every race since 1922. Famed for its long straights and legendary high speed corners such as the Curva Parabolica, Curva di Lesmo and Variante Ascari, Monza has been the site of some of the closest finishes in the history of Grand Prix racing.

The previous round, two weeks ago at Spa, saw the Racing Engineering drivers in great form with Fabio Leimer finishing 4th and 5th in the two races and Julián Leal, in the best race weekend of his GP2 career, took 6th and 2nd.

In the last two years Fabio has twice finished in 2nd place and he will, once again, be a strong contender to finish on the top step of the podium and Julián, following his podium at Spa, will be looking to be standing there once again.

Below Thomas Couyotopoulo, Sporting Director of Racing Engineering, forward to the challenges of Monza:

Spa was a very good weekend for the Racing Engineering team. Were you happy with the results achieved in Belgium?

Overall Spa weekend was quite positive as we achieved to score many points with both drivers and it was particularly good to see Julian on the Podium on Sunday.

Following the race weekend in Spa, there is Monza, another track layout with high speed corners and long straights. What makes Monza such a special venue on the calendar?

Monza is a historic venue within the championship that always attracts a lot of people and it has the uniqueness of taking place in a park, in the middle of the city. It's the circuit with the highest top speed of the GP2 championship and the chicanes create overtaking areas which have proved to be interesting in the past.

What are the challenges for teams and drivers on the legendary Monza track? And what do you expect from the Racing Engineering drivers this weekend?

The main technical challenge is to have the right compromise between aero efficiency and keep enough downforce for braking stability. Managing to go through the chicanes and the curbs and keep a good traction out of these areas is another key point here at Monza. We target to have both drivers scoring some good points again and we want Fabio to be on the Podium and obviously the goal is to win.

With 6 races to go in the 2013 season, the championship title fight is closer than ever. Who will be Fabio's main competitors in his battle?

To be honest, there is a group of 8 top drivers with experience that are leading the standings of the championship and that are all capable of winning races. On this last part of the championship, it will be important to score as many points as possible at each race and, ideally, to win the Feature Race that brings a lot of points.

Timetable:
Practice: Fri 06 Sep 2013, 12:00 (GMT+2)
Qualifying Session: Fri 06 Sep 2013, 15:55 (GMT+2)
Race 1: Sat 07 Sep 2013, 15:40 (GMT+2)
Race 2: Sun 08 Sep 2013, 10:35 (GMT+2)