A better Qualifying for Racing Engineering and Louis Delétraz today at Barcelona

12/05/17 A better Qualifying for Racing Engineering and Louis Delétraz today at Barcelona.

It was warm and sunny today at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain for Practice and Qualifying at the second round of the 2017 FIA F2 Championship with air and track temperatures of 23° and 35° degrees respectively for the forty-five minute morning Practice session. The two Racing Engineering drivers, Louis Delétraz and Gustav Malja, were quickly out on the track and, like the other cars, they were fitted with the Pirelli P Zero Orange hard tyre compound tyres. Louis immediately went to the top of the timing list with a time of 1:31.408 on his first flying lap but all the cars were going faster on every lap.

Gustav’s first quick time was on his fifth lap when he moved into the top ten on 1:31.647 while Louis was up to second on his sixth lap when he improved to 1:30.644 and Gustav was less than a second slower on 1:31.560. With twenty minutes of the session gone both Louis and Gustav returned to the Racing Engineering pit for some set-up changes. Gustav returned to the track with less than thirteen minutes still to go and Louis followed with eight minutes left but neither man improved on their earlier times leaving Louis 5^th and Gustav 17^th.

It was hotter for the thirty-minute afternoon Qualifying session with air and track temperatures of 26° and 43° degrees respectively and all the cars were now using the Pirelli P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres as all the drivers battled for the best grid positions for tomorrow’s feature race. Louis was running quickly from the start to go 5th on 1:30.320 with Gustav close behind on 1:30.814 in 9th and after twelve minutes the two men were back in the pits for some final set-up changes and a new set of soft compound tyres. There was just seven minutes of the session left as both Racing Engineering cars returned to the track but almost immediately an abandoned car on the track meant the session was red-flagged while it was recovered. As the session restarted Louis and Gustav were immediately back on the track and the young Swiss improved his time to 1:30.046 to go 9th but Gustav was unable to improve.

At the end of the thirty minutes Louis was placed 11th with Gustav 18th and, although it will be hard for Gustav to make it into the points, Louis has an excellent chance to score his first point of the year as well as gain a good grid position for Sunday’s race.

©FIA F2 Championship

©FIA F2 Championship

Team Comments:

Sebastien Viger, Technical Director: “After a positive free practice with Louis, we were hoping for a similar result in qualifying. We had a solid first run, even though not yet where we wanted to be. He had only one push lap during the second run and was on track for a top result through sector one and two, but too much time was lost in sector three, so we had to settle for 11th. In Gustav’s case, he hasn’t felt comfortable with the car since this morning, so we will have to pull out a great strategy for tomorrow to bring him back into the points.”

Louis Delétraz: “The morning session was really good. I had a good feeling with the car and my position was good, we worked on both race and qualifying runs. Finishing the afternoon qualifying in 11th position is a bit disappointing, but for sure it’s better than Bahrain, but we want more. We want to fight at the front, like in the morning, and qualifying is what we need to work at. I am really looking forward to tomorrow’s race as all the race simulation we did went really well and I am confident we can come back in the race.”

Gustav Malja: “Obviously, I am massively disappointed, this was not my day. I struggled to get the maximum out of the car and don’t have the same positive feeling as during testing. Anyway, we will work for tomorrow. I would like to thank the team for their work today and our focus is on tomorrow now.”