It was definitely not Faster Than Speed's weekend at Canada, with the team picking up its first double-DNF of the World Championship season at Montreal. Both Thomas Mundy and Giuseppe Marconi retired before half distance.
In the World Series and World Trophy Canadian GP's, FTS showed promising performances which unfortunately also failed to transform into results.
In the World Championship, Thomas Mundy drove his first WC race of the season, and second of his career after making his debut in 2009. He qualified in 19th place, ahead of team-mate Giuseppe Marconi, who set the 21st fastest time in Q1.
Giuseppe made an excellent start, passing cars into turns 1 and 2 before overtaking Masciuli into turn 3 to move up to 18th. Showing good pace on his soft tyres, Giuseppe ran as high as 12th before contact from Godek dropped him a few places before his first pitstop. Having switched to hard tyres on lap 16, Giuseppe was making progress when he clipped the curb at the final corner, losing the rear of his car and damaging his FTS-P13 terminally against the famous Wall of Champions, ending his race at the spot.
Thomas Mundy started with a different strategy, on the hard tyre compound. Despite competing in his first WC race in over 4 years, Thomas showed strong pace, keeping up with the pack despite using the slower tyre compound. On the 29th lap, however, on heavily worn tyres, Thomas lost the back end of the car into turn 3, clipping the wall at the exit, ending his race prematurely.
Thomas Mundy (DNF): "Disappointed to retire this weekend but it was looking pretty good until then. I had a reasonable pace in Qualifying and was surprised to qualify ahead of a couple of guys, to be honest. Then in the race it was looking OK. We were on a different strategy with the tyres and tried to run the hards too long in the end, which is why I had to retire. I was losing too much time and starting to slide a bit as well, so that's something learnt. Overall, though, it was a good weekend and the race pace was encouraging, because I managed to keep up with the field and was running in 15th at one point, after starting from 19th, so I think there's a lot of positives to take from this race."
Giuseppe Marconi (DNF): "2 stops was surely a wrong strategy. I had to switch to at least 3. Soft tyres were quite undriveable after 13 laps even if in testing we were able to do longer stints on them. After the pitstop for hard tyres, I ruined my race hitting the curb with my rear tyres in the last corner, causing a spin that put me in the wall."
In the World Series, Thomas Mundy showed a promising performance, clearly making a step forward compared to previous rounds. However, an unscheduled stop on lap 5 compromised his race and strategy, before retiring from the race on lap 39.
In the World Trophy, Hungarian Attila Szekely made his Faster Than Speed debut. After being close to the top 10 in Q1, he showed strong pace in the race, running as high as 6th before his first stop. Unfortunately, on lap 15, Keanie re-entered the track from an off-track excursion into the path of the battling trio of Chong, Debacquer and Attila, severely damaging his car. Attila tried to recover but had to retire on lap 35.
The sixth round of the season will be the British GP. At the famous Silverstone circuit, FTS was on the WC podium in two ocassions, while the team also won races in different WS divisions. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@FTS_Racing) and Google+ for the latest news and live coverage from Great Britain!
Faster Than Speed
Press Release
http://www.fts-racing.net
