More warm weather greeted the GP2 teams at Hockenheim, although the skies were cloudy, with air and track temperatures of 24° and 34° respectively as the 45-minute Free Practice got underway. Norman Nato and Jordan King, the two Racing Engineering drivers, were quickly out of the pits and on to the track and, like all the other cars, they were using the Pirelli P Zero White medium compound tyres as they began to work on the set-up of their cars for today’s Qualifying and the races which will be held on Saturday and Sunday.
After a single installation lap both men returned to the pits, returning to the track with five minutes of the session gone. Norman was the first to set a quick lap, going 2nd on 1:24.435 and then Jordan moved up to 2nd with a time of 1:24.147. Times were quickly falling and Norman immediately improved on his sixth lap to 1:23.535 to top the timing sheets and two laps later he reduced his time to 1:23.470 while Jordan was right behind his teammate on 1:23.670.
After fifteen minutes both Norman and Jordan returned to the Racing Engineering pits for some adjustments to their cars before returning to the track with twenty minutes of the session still to go. Both men completed a few laps and then returned again to the pits for some more changes before taking to the circuit for the remaining five minutes but neither driver improved on their earlier times.
The 30-minute Qualifying session saw the air temperature unchanged but the track temperature had gone up 3 degrees to 37° and all the teams were now using the Pirelli P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres for increased grip. The Racing Engineering cars were amongst the first out on the track and Jordan’s third lap saw him 4th fastest on 1:23.042 with Norman 9th with a lap of 1:23.211. The next flying lap for Jordan saw him improve to 1:22.839 for 6th and then, with ten minutes gone, both of the Racing Engineering cars returned to the pits for some adjustments and a new set of soft tyres.
There were just ten minutes of the session left as Norman and Jordan came back onto the track and Norman immediately improved to 5th with a time of 1:22.489 and Jordan was up to 9th on 1:22.548 and as the session came to an end neither man improved their times leaving Norman 7th, less than three tenths of a second slower than the pole position lap, and Jordan 9th.
Neither driver are as high on the grid as they would like to be but, Hockenheim is a track where overtaking is possible and in past years drivers have won the race when starting in the lower half of the field so both men will be looking to move up the field in tomorrow’s Feature Race and finish on the podium. |
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Team Comments:
Alan Queille, Race Engineer: “Disappointing results considering the pace we had with both cars. Even if both are in the top 10, we could have done better and the fact that both struggled with their brakes didn’t help given such a tight final classification. Having said this, both cars starting in the top 10 is promising for tomorrow’s race.”
Norman Nato: “In qualifying I had a lot of traffic during my first run and even on my single flying lap I hit more, so it was difficult to have a clear feeling of the car’s balance. It was better on my second run as firstly I didn’t encounter any traffic and had a clean lap, but in the end it’s P7, which is a bit disappointing as I think we could have gone for pole today.”
Jordan King:: “Qualifying was very close with the first 14 cars within just 8 tenths of a second, which makes it a very tough session and the margin for errors is very small. I finished only three and a half tenths off pole and it’s a little disappointing to start 9th. But seeing how close it is, I’m sure we will make good progress in the race.” |
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