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26/07/15 A very disappointing race today for Racing Engineering at the Hungaroring. |
| Today’s 28 lap Sprint Race was held in much cooler conditions due to its morning start with air and track temperatures of 19° and 32° respectively and there was a gusty wind blowing. Following yesterday’s Feature Race Jordan King was starting from 3rd on the reversed grid after finishing 6th while Alexander Rossi was back in 12th. All the cars were starting on the Pirelli P Zero White medium compound tyres. Jordan made a slow getaway from the second row losing several places and a brake-locking moment on cold tyres dropped him to 7th at the end of the first lap just ahead of yesterday’s race winner Lynn. By lap five the Racing Engineering car was right behind Gasly and he was pulling away from Nato whilst he was just two seconds behind the 4th placed car. Over the next ten laps the positions the front of the field stayed the same as the drivers conserved their tyres for the later part of the race. However, as the race entered its closing laps, Jordan found his tyres degrading badly and he lost positions to Nato and Visoiu falling to 9th and with five laps remaining he was passed by Lynn and Pic and with one lap to go he was passed by Berthon to finish the race in a very disappointed 12th. Alexander’s start saw him lose a place to Latifi as De Jong stalled in front of him but he regained the position on the opening lap to cross the line in 12th right behind Visoiu. Lap seven saw the young American involved in a big group of cars with the gap from 8th to 13th just six seconds. On lap 19 Alexander dropped a place to Pic falling to 13th and he was now watching out for a closing Stanaway but he was able to stabilise the gap at 1.5 seconds. With ten laps remaining the Racing Engineering driver was now involved it an intense battle with Berthon who had passed Stanaway and despite some excellent defensive driving he dropped to 14th on lap nineteen as his tyres lost their grip and then he lost another place to Stanaway and on lap twenty he called into the pits for fresh tyres resuming in 23rd and he was only able to move up to 19th by the chequered flag. Both Jordan and Alexander were unable to show the race performance they were hoping for as they suffered from tyre problems and neither man was able to score any points today. The GP2 teams will now take a summer break before returning to racing at Spa in Belgium in one month’s time. |
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| Team Comments: Thomas Lassus, Race Engineer: “Today's race was very bad for our team. We were hoping to gain positions, but instead we dropped back. We even had to do a pit stop with Alex and we were running out of tyres. This was definitely not what we were hoping for. We missed something for today's race and will work hard to get back to where we belong. Fortunately, Alex is still in third in the championship and the team as well, but we aim higher and will definitely be back in Spa.” Jordan King: “At the start I was a bit slow off the line, but I don't think I had great tyre temperatures for the start of the race. The first 5 laps were OK and we were able to keep the gap, but then we just destroyed the tyres and really struggled from mid race on.” Alexander Rossi: “It was a difficult race from the beginning. There was a new thing we tried to improve from yesterday and it didn't work out. I am very glad we have a break now to understand what was going wrong this weekend and I have every intention of fighting back at Spa.” |
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