Despite suffering a brake failure which caused him to end his race in the barriers, John-Eric Saxen rescued two points for 9th place in the glamorous FSR WC Monaco GP at Monte Carlo.
Carlos Hernandez and Danny Lubbers achieved a double point-scoring finish at the Principality in WS while Sami Pesari was 7th in the WT division despite suffering from a brake problem.
In the World Championship, John-Eric Saxen and Giuseppe Marconi set the 15th and 19th fastest times respectively in the Q1 session.
Both drivers gained a place each on the opening lap, with both John-Eric and Giuseppe driving solid races, making progress and keeping the car in one piece. Thanks to making no mistakes, John-Eric had moved up to 6th place by lap 74.
With only 4 laps remaining, however, one of his front brakes failed. He was able to continue half a lap in those conditions, until the other front brake failed in the Piscine section. John-Eric was then just a passenger as his FTS-P12 slid into the barriers ending his race. Due to the high attrition rate, and as he completed over 90% of the race distance, John-Eric was still classified in 9th place, scoring two valuable points to avoid leaving Monte Carlo empty-handed.
Giuseppe looked set to score his first points in a long time after a race which included battles with Varga and Morand. Unfortunately, he lost the rear into the Rascasse corner on lap 56, losing his front wing. As Giuseppe tried to get himself out of the dangerous position and resume driving, he braked to avoid a colission with Gobbi, stalling his engine in the process and ending his hopes prematurely.
John-Eric Saxen (9th): "After a somewhat difficult qualifying my strategy was simple: just keeping the car on track. It might have looked a bit slow, but eventually I found myself in P6, even without any overtakings, except for passing a few cars in the pits. With 4 laps to go, my front brakes let go, even though I was running conservative settings. A couple of points at the end of the day, but a bit disappointed with this."
Giuseppe Marconi (DNF): "In Q1 I was 19th. However I couldn't have improved my position even if I was 4 thents slower than my personal best time. I did a lot of races at Monaco, so I know that if I was able to finish I could be in the points. I started my race well and for first stint I had good pace, even if it was a bit slower than I expected. In the second and third stints I had some good battles with Varga and Morand. I could only try to defend my position and try to stay away from trouble. I didn't make any mistakes during the race and I was 13th until the last lap before my third pitstop. At Rascasse I lost the rear under braking and I hit the barrier, losing my front wing. I thought that I was lucky because I was near the pitlane but when I reversed I saw Gobbi coming behind me so I pushed my brake hard to avoid contact but stalled my engine and my race was over, together with my points-scoring wish."
In the World Series, both Carlos Hernandez and Danny Lubbers survived a very tough race at Monaco, nursing damaged cars home to score points in 14th and 15th places respectively.
In the World Trophy, Sami Pesari suffered a brake failure that cost him 4th place, but he still managed to see the checkered flag with a heavily damaged car to finish in 7th position, rescuing solid points and his best result of the season to date. Kevin Clark, meanwhile, was very disappointed to be disqualified due to ignoring blue flags in a missunderstanding with Petar Brljak, when Kevin was running in 4th place and looking set for a maiden podium result.
Faster Than Speed now moves to Montreal, for round 5 of the FSR season. FTS took its maiden WC Pole Position at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in 2007, together with several victories and 1-2 finishes in the different WS divisions. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@FTS_Racing) and Google+ for the latest news and live coverage from Canada!
Faster Than Speed
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