Racing Engineering looking to improve for tomorrow’s Hungaroring Feature Race

28/07/17 Racing Engineering looking to improve for tomorrow’s Hungaroring Feature Race.

It was yet another warm day at the Hungaroring for the Friday morning forty-five minute Practice session of the seventh round of the 2017 FIA Formula Two Championship with air and track temperatures of 24° and 30° respectively. Pirelli are supplying their P Zero White medium and P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres have been nominated as, although the circuit is relatively slow, the tyres are worked hard and, even with high downforce settings, mechanical grip is more important than aerodynamic grip.

The Racing Engineering drivers, Louis Delétraz and Gustav Malja, were amongst the first cars on the track and Louis first quick lap saw him in 7th on 1:28.870 while Gustav was 12th with a time of 1:29.238 with both cars on the P Zero White medium tyres. After fifteen minutes Louis returned to the pits while Gustav improved slightly to 1:29.027 and then also pitted so that both cars could have some set-up adjustments. Louis returned to the track with twenty-three minutes remaining and he immediately improved to 1:28.645 and Gustav joined him four minutes later.

With seventeen minutes of the session still to run a Virtual Safety Car period saw Louis return to the pits while Gustav remained on track and when the Safety Car period ended he improved to 1:28.407 before also returning to the pits. Both men returned to the track in the final minutes but neither improved on their earlier times.

It was warmer for the 30-minute Qualifying session with air and track temperatures of 27° and 34° and all the cars, including those of Racing Engineering, were now using the Pirelli P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres. Once again Louis and Gustav were amongst the very first on the track and on his first fast lap Louis went second on 1:27.985 and then Gustav went faster on 1:27.804 for third. With ten minutes of the session completed both men returned to the pits for set-up adjustments and a new set of soft tyres and as they did the session was stopped by a red flag.

Both Louis and Gustav were back on the track with just under ten minutes left to run and the young Swiss driver improved slightly to 1:27.582 which left him in 17th while Gustav was unable to improve so he finished 18th. With overtaking difficult at the Hungaroring it will be very hard for either driver to get into the points tomorrow but the team will be working hard between now and the race to try and improve the pace of both men.

©FIA F2 Championship

©FIA F2 Championship

Team Comments:

Sebastien Viger - Technical Director: “This was an eventful qualifying with a red flag in the middle of the session. We saw from the morning free practice on that it would be a close fight in qualifying to get into the top 10. We gained quite a lot of insight during free practice, but this didn’t pay off in qualifying, so we had to settle for quite low grid positions. It’s a difficult circuit to overtake on, so we will have to play with strategy and hope for external factors helping up to make it into the points.”

Louis Delétraz: “This was quite a difficult day. In the morning, we had a bit of a balance issue, which I felt we solved when driving in qualifying, but the lap times didn’t come. Driving felt good, but the time sheets didn’t show this. Now we don’t really understand this and need to analyse it as we cannot stay in the position we are in right now. We need to push hard in the races and try to overtake even though it’s difficult from so far back, but we will give our best.”

Gustav Malja: “It started off quite tough in the morning session, but we improved on the second run. We made some steps in this respect, and this felt positive. Qualifying was very disappointing again and we need to analyse this and see what we need to do to improve. Now we will forget about qualifying and focus on the races.”