It was a beautiful sunny day at the Autodrom Most circuit in the Czech Republic as the Elite 1 cars took to the track for their ten-minute Qualifying session with Ander Vilariño and Romain Iannetta in their Racing Engineering Ford Mustangs looking to get a good grid position for this afternoon’s race. Ander’s first flying lap saw him set a time of 1:44.022 for sixth fastest which he then improved to 1:43.310 with Romain just a little faster on 1:42.908, Ander reduced his time to 1:42.626 to finish the session in fifteenth with Romain in eighteenth. For the Elite 2 Qualifying Myatt Snider and Eric Clement replaced Ander and Romain for their longer twenty-minute session, Matt went eighth on his first fast lap with a time of 1:45.755 while Eric set a time of 1:47.956 to lie seventeenth. Matt jumped up to sixth when he lowered his time to 1:43.517 and Eric also improved to 1:45.080 despite a big spin. At the halfway point of the session Myatt pitted to preserve his tyres while Eric spun again into the gravel trap causing a red flag while his car was removed but he was able to continue. The session resumed with just over 6 minutes remaining with Myatt remaining in the pits while Eric still on track and at the end of the twenty minutes the young American finished fourteenth with the Frenchman in nineteenth.

Qualifying for the seventeen lap Elite 1 race had been very disappointing for the Racing Engineering team with Ander starting fourteenth and Romain seventeenth but both men were determined to fight their way into the points and get a good result for themselves and the team. It was still very hot and sunny as the cars took the rolling start and all the drivers were aware that the very high track temperatures would affect their tyres badly so they could not afford to push too hard in the early stages of the race. Romain had a good opening lap moving up to fifteenth as he passed Delsaux and his teammate Ander who was not so fortunate as he fell to sixteenth. Romain gained another place on lap two passing Ercoli to lie fourteenth and the French driver was making good progress to lie ninth on lap four but contact with another car dropped him back down the field to fourteenth and he received a drive-through penalty for the incident that dropped him further to nineteenth. Ander was now moving up through the field and after eight laps he was up to eleventh chasing the cars ahead and with five laps to go he was on the back of a big group of battling cars fighting for fifth. With just three laps remaining the Safety Car was deployed with a car stranded on the track with a blown engine and the dropped oil causing problems for other cars and when everything had settled down Ander was tenth and Romain eighteenth and with the oil on the track preventing the race restarting this was where they finished.

The two Racing Engineering cars of Myatt Snider and Eric Clement lined up on the grid in fourteenth and nineteenth positions respectively for the fourteen lap Elite 2 race with the skies still blue and the track temperature still very high. Both drivers got away cleanly and Myatt passed Hemborg to move up to thirteenth, but he lost the place again further round the lap to fall back to fourteenth, but the Safety Car was deployed at the end of the lap closing all the cars up again. Eric had an incredible opening two laps gaining no less than seven places to be twelfth at the start of the Safety Car period. Racing resumed on lap eight leaving just six to go, and Myatt was immediately attacking, and he jumped up to tenth at the end of the lap but for Eric his good race was over when he had to retire. Myatt continued to push hard over the remaining laps but he had to settle for tenth at the chequered flag.

This was not the day Racing Engineering were hoping for but the whole team will be working hard to give their drivers competitive cars for tomorrow’s races.

Team Comments:

Alfonso de Orléans-Borbón - President of Racing Engineering: "So both drivers in the 48 car in the top 10. Eric was having a great race until he was pushed off, a pity, since he would have had a good finish. Now back to work to get the cars ready for tomorrow and hopefully get better results."

Ander Vilariño: “We have done what we could today, we didn’t have a good qualifying, so starting from 15th was tough. I had to take care because of many incidents ahead of me, but I was able to fight my way up to 7th. However, the race order was changed with the Safety Car deployed and I was sent back into 10th position when the positions from the lap before the safety car neutralised the race were applied. It’s a top 10 finish but is not what we wanted. Everyone in the team is fighting, we are winners so let’s work. We improved car a bit from qualifying but now we will work on improving it further.”

Romain Iannetta: "My race was not perfect. I had a good start from 18th and overtook a lot of cars. But after that, fighting with Alexander Graff, I had contact with car 17, Tineo. It was my fault; I locked the rear and touched his car. I was handed a drive though penalty, which made me drop back to 18th again.”

Myatt Snider: "Had a bit of a struggle with the Ford Performance Mustang. We have been trying setups all weekend and the car has not been taking it. But we have a smart group of guys and we will come back tomorrow with something better."

Eric Clement: "The car was really good. I started 19th and by the end of the first lap I was 11th. At the restart there was a crash in the first corner and I was pushed which caused the car to be undriveable. Then I was hit from behind from a car which sent me into the wall. But before that I was having a great race and the car felt really good."