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03/07/15 Alexander Rossi qualifies fourth today at Silverstone. |
| The sun was out today at Silverstone for practice and qualifying with air and track temperatures of 21° and 41° respectively for the 45 minute morning practice session and all the cars were running the Pirelli P Zero Orange hard compound tyres. The two Racing Engineering drivers, Alexander Rossi and Jordan King in his home race, were immediately out on the track as the session got underway and Alexander immediately went fastest on his first flying lap with a time of 1:41.290s and two laps later he improved to 1:41.054s. Jordan was also just as quick and after twelve minutes he was lying right behind his teammate in 3rd on 1:41.516s. After 15 minutes both Alexander and Jordan returned to the pits for some setup adjustments and with twenty three minutes remaining both men were back on track. Alexander immediately improved to 1:40.924s and then returned to the pits for some further adjustments as did Jordan. With seven minutes remaining both men returned to the track but neither improved on their earlier times. The thirty minute afternoon qualifying session saw similar conditions to those in the morning with air and track temperatures of 24° and 40° respectively with the cars now running the softer Pirelli P Zero White medium compound tyres as they fought for their grid positions for tomorrow’s race. Both Alexander and Jordan were flying from the start and Jordan went 3rd with 1:40.809s and Alexander was just behind in 7th with a lap of 1:40.968s. After 14 minutes both cars returned to the pits for new tyres and some final setup changes before going for their final quick laps. With ten minutes remaining both cars returned to the track and Jordan improved slightly to 1:40.765s which left him in 13th place as the session finished whilst Alexander lowered his time to an excellent 1:40.419s for 4th position. Tomorrow’s Feature Race will see Alexander start from the second row of the grid right behind his title rival Vandoorne with an excellent chance of finishing on the podium whilst Jordan will start from the seventh row and he will drive as hard as ever to get into the points and secure a good grid position for Sunday’s race. |
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| Team Comments: Thomas Couyotopoulo, Sporting Director of Racing Engineering: “Free practice this morning was quite positive and there was good potential on prime tyres for both drivers. In qualifying the first stint was good for Jordan, unfortunately he didn’t improve enough in the second stint and dropped down to P13 which is not what we were targeting for a start in the Feature Race. Alexander’s qualifying was the reverse, not so good in the first stint but improving on the second set of tyres to lie 4th so it will be a second row start tomorrow and we can fight for the podium. We need to find a few more tenths to challenge Vandoorne and will work hard on the strategy for both drivers to allow Alexander to fight for the podium and for Jordan to be able to fight his way up and get into the points and get a good position on the reverse grid.” Jordan King: “Overall it has been very good and there are a lot of positives to take away, it’s certainly a bit more physical than Formula Three round here! The first set of tyres in qualifying were good but I was a bit too confident to make a change to the car. In hindsight I probably should have to improve it whereas I thought I could find an improvement in myself a bit more than I did so I lost out a little there, I think a solid top ten was where we should be. The race itself will be interesting because of the high tyre wear.” Alexander Rossi:: “Practice was good for us but qualifying was harder as we weren’t able to find a good balance, however, saying that we know the car is very good in a race environment so being fourth isn’t a bad place to start, we’ve started from worse positions and had good results. It’s about staying out of trouble on the first lap then settling into the race and seeing what we can do.” |
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