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23/08/15 Alexander Rossi and Jordan King finish first and second today at Spa for Racing Engineering.
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The weather continued to be sunny and warm for today’s 18 lap Sprint Race although, with the morning start, the air and track temperatures of 21° and 27° respectively were lower than yesterday. Following Saturday’s Feature Race Jordan King, who finished 8th, was starting from pole position on the reversed grid with Alexander Rossi, who was sixth yesterday, back in 3rd and both of the Racing Engineering cars were racing on the Pirelli P Zero Orange hard compound.
Alexander made a good start moving up to second behind Jordan and halfway round the opening lap Jordan made a small error, running wide and the young American was able to move into 1st and had a lead of almost one second at the end of the opening lap over his teammate. The two Racing Engineering cars were holding the gap to Berthon in 3rd to just over half a second as both men concentrated on preserving their tyres.
At the halfway point of the race, lap nine, Alexander was still leading Jordan by 0.9 seconds with Berthon a similar distance behind the young Briton in 3rd and yesterday’s race winner Vandoorne 0.6 seconds behind the Lazarus car. On lap ten Vandoorne moved up to 3rd and by lap 12 he had closed in on the Racing Engineering pair and the gap from 1st to 3rd was 1.8 seconds but all three men were still being careful not to stress their tyres. On lap 14 Pic left the track at Stavelot and his car was stuck in the gravel trap causing a Virtual safety Car period, racing resumed on the following lap and Alexander made a very good restart and Vandoorne went temporarily off-track following a brake lock-up allowing Jordan to pull away a little from the ART car.
With just three laps remaining Alexander was leading Jordan by 1.2 seconds with Vandoorne 2.2 seconds behind the British driver, and as the final laps ran out the two Racing Engineering cars continued to lead and at the chequered flag they crossed the line in first and second.
A fantastic result for the Racing Engineering team with both Alexander and Jordan driving perfect races, preserving their tyres and running first and second for the whole race with Alexander taking his first win of the year and Jordan taking his first GP2 podium. With this result Alexander moves back to second in the Drivers’ Championship and Racing Engineering are also now second in the Team Championship. The next round of the 2015 GP2 Series will be at Monza in two weeks’ time and the Spanish team will be looking for more wins on the Italian circuit. |
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Team Comments:
Thomas Couyotopoulo, Sporting Director of Racing Engineering: “Today we achieved a great result, the best any team could look for. It really reflects the hard work put in by the drivers together with the team this year, it also shows how well our drivers work with and respect each other. Congratulations to both of them and to the team for giving them not only quick but also reliable cars all weekend long.”
Jordan King: "The start off the line was one of my better ones, I maintained the lead all the way to Les Combes but unfortunately slightly misjudged my defending and lost out on the exit of turn 6. From there my speed was good all the race, I felt that I was quicker than Alex, but couldn't quite get past him. The VSC helped a bit to cool down the tyres for a short sprint to the end. I am very happy with my first podium, but also disappointed as the win was definitely on the cards.”
Alexander Rossi:: “My start was good and I immediately started challenging for the lead in turn 1 and we were fighting all the way down into turn 5, where I was able to pass Jordan on the exit of turn 6. From there it was about managing the race, not only for the tyres, but also for DRS as well. It was very important for me to push it a bit in sector 2 in order to have enough of a gap when Jordan would have DRS. We were able to do this very well the whole race because we have a great car as evident by the team's first 1-2.” |
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