Faster Than Speed had a mixed race weekend in the second round of the FSR season at Sepang, Malaysia. John-Eric Saxen was on the verge of scoring his first FTS points in WC but missed out due to a couple of slow pitstops.
Bryan Stark and Kevin Clark took their maiden FSR points in WS and WT respectively, while Danny Lubbers also scored WS points for the first time with FTS.
In the World Championship, John-Eric Saxen set the 11th fastest time in the Q1 session, just missing out on entering Q2 by 0.08s after being knocked out in the closing seconds of Qualifying. Giuseppe Marconi, on his first race of 2012, qualified 23rd.
Giuseppe's race, unfortunately, ended almost before it started. After making a good start and passing three cars, he was touched by Varga as the pair turned into Turn 1. The contact spun the Italian's car around, stalling the engine on his FTS-P12.
John-Eric, meanwhile, drove a solid race in contention for points. However, two slow pitstops compromised his chances, costing him precious seconds and specially, track position in a race where overtaking was extremely difficult. Stuck behind Brljak for most of the third stint, a very quick third pitstop allowed John-Eric to just leapfrog the Twister-Racing man, with both drivers exiting the pitlane next to each other before John-Eric prevailed. Despite a good last stint, catching the point-scoring finishers wasn't possible, meaning John-Eric finished in 11th place, missing out on points by only 3 seconds.
John-Eric Saxen (11th): "I was relatively pleased with my Qualifying lap, which was almost enough for Q2, but I got knocked out in the closing seconds.
The race turned out quite difficult, since I had to drive in a queue for most of the time, with very few overtaking opportunities. That means most of the results would be decided in the pits. Unfortunately, I was not able to have more than one good pitstop due to various issues, which at the end probably cost me a couple of positions. In the last pitstop I managed to pass Brljak after finally being lucky with a 6-second stop. The time lost behind him meant I was not able to catch the cars ahead anymore.
The end result was frustrating but in hindsight, I went wrong with the car setup in a few aspects. With that in mind, I'm confident to fight for higher positions and score the first points for FTS once I manage a 100% solid effort with preparations and the race."
Giuseppe Marconi (DNF): "Unlucky debut for me this year. Just like last year, my race here finished at the first turn. I worked a lot on race pace because I knew my qualifying pace was poor. I had quite a good, very consistent race pace. I started the race very well and my reaction was surely better than my opponents' in front. I was gaining 3 positions into Turn 1 but Varga put his front right tyre between my left tyres and the incident was sure to happen, together with my spin. Engine stalled and race was over in a few seconds. It was a race incident, but I got very angry. See you in China."
In the World Series, Bryan Stark scored his first FSR points with a strong drive to 15th from last on the grid, after being unable to set a time in Qualifying due to technical issues. Danny Lubbers, meanwhile, suffered a brake failure with 5 laps to go but also took his first points of the year being classified in 20th place.
In the World Trophy's Grid 1 race, Kevin Clark overcame an issue with starting fuel which required an extra pitstop plus a stop-and-go penalty for speeding in the pitlane to score his maiden FSR points in 19th position. Juan Nicola retired early after an incident. In the Grid 2 race, Sami Pesari was challenging leader Kunkel for victory when brake issues ended his chances, leaving him classified outside the points in 11th place. Francisco Oliveira also looked set to score when an engine problem ended his race with 4 laps remaining.
Faster Than Speed now heads to Shanghai, for the third round of the FSR season. FTS will be hoping to finally open its WC points tally while continuing to make progress in both WS and WT. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@FTS_Racing) and Google+ for the latest news and live coverage from China!
Faster Than Speed
Press Release
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