The two back-to-back weekends provided plenty of excitement for Precision and culminated in the best possible way with Huis capturing the Monaco throne in WC.
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Barcelona
The Spanish weekend kicked off the European season and provided both joy and tears. In World Series the team had a modest qualifying influenced by traction problems, but in the race Cyril Werdmuller took the best out of the car to score home a strong third, continuing the podium streak for the Dutch. Mattias Stahre finished in fifth after early damage from banzai moves, David Martinez in eight and Fred Gosling in 14th after technical issues.
In World Trophy the team was equally somewhat handicapped in qualifying (compared to normal standards), while Allar Foht, Pedro Melim and Ajibola Lawal took 4th, 5th and 6th. In the race the team's pace was better, as expected, and Foht managed to leapfrog the opponents one by one to take the lead. A dominating performance saw the Estonian finish in a first victory, accompanied by Lawal in fourth, Melim in fifth and Emre Uysal in eight. Foht commented on his performance in the Estonian modest manner:
"I wasn't quite happy with myself, did a few stupid mistakes, but nevertheless 1st place and some nice points for the team. Also great fight from my team mates through the whole race."
Onto the weekend's final run, World Championship, the team performed an uneven qualifying with Bono Huis in an excellent second, but championship leader Tali in a lowly 19th. The synopsis for the race turned upside down already in the first stint, when Bono Huis was hit from behind as a consequence of a certainly rare mistake by Bruno Marques. Meanwhile Tali put up a storming drive of a championship leader to overtake cars one by one.
Ronny Hähnel had quietly made up places in the qualifying and on his way towards a first WC podium, when an electrical failure hit the young German with one lap to go. After all retirements Rasmus Tali finished in an astonishing second place, equaling the achievement of Marques from Turkey 2007 to rise from P19 to P2. Jaakko Mikkonen finished in a respectable fourth after being hit by several cars early on.
Monaco
Just one week later, the glorious Monaco grand prix was scheduled. This time, the weekend kicked off slightly better, as Cyril Werdmuller made it to the front row in qualifying, whereas Mattias Stahre suffered from traffic in all his runs and had to settle for 9th. Rather unsurprisingly, the first laps provided plenty of incidents, including a safety car period, of which Werdmuller made most use and acclaimed the lead. The Dutchman's irreproachable weekend continued until the very final laps, when unavoidable contact with an ill-positioned Santiago Niza forced Werdmuller to pit. In a race influenced by bad fortune, the team eventually ended up with 4th and 6th places from Werdmuller and Stahre.
In World Trophy the best news from qualifying was the front row from Ajibola Lawal, and championship leader Pedro Melim habitually settled for fifth. After losing a place in start Lawal reseltted for second place, but the ghosts kept hunting the Briton, as a spun backmarker car blocked the road and resulted in instant retirement. Not surprisingly, Melim continued his consistent performing despite a front wing loss, which eventually saw the Portuguese finish in third, further strengthening his already impressive championship lead. The Portuguese commented: "In the end a third place is a very good result on this type of track and considering I lost front wing once."
Emre Uysal continued his excellent race performances in form of P4.
The World Championship would however be the ultimate test where the ducks would separate from the men. The team had a strong qualifying, topped by Bono Huis taking his third pole of the season, being the only "man" braking the 1:13 mark and just edging out Civitavecchia's gift to sim racing, David Greco. The race continued in the hands of Huis until the pit stops, when a 1-stopping Greco gained the position due to the strategy. The young Precision driver nevertheless proved the "no overtake at Monaco" rule wrong and regained the lead.
After a supreme performance, Huis finished over the chequered flag with no one in close distance to capture his first Monaco win, which aided him back to third in the championship. Ronny Hähnel put up another impressive drive by securing the double podium of team #1 and more importantly the constructors' championship lead. Jaakko Mikkonen finished in fifth after an action-filled race behind Patrick De Wit and Rasmus Tali in eight after a couple of astonishing overtaking moves.
Thanks to the results, Precision now maintains all championship leads in the three FSR categories. The Istanbul GP marks the next race, to be held in two week's time. Stay tuned for the broadcast!
Ondrej Kuncman, Precision Motorsports team manager commented:
"Being nearly perfectly ready for each race and in each division doesn't necessarily bring wanted results as we have seen the last 2 FSR weekends. Technical difficulties and agressive reckless behaviour by a few drivers and backmarkers left us highly frustrated but yet motivated for the next races. Everybody is working hard and driving even better. Bono outclassed everybody in Monaco and we are doing our very best to reinstate this Precision domination in Turkey in all categories."
Selected driver quotes:
Bono Huis (1st) commented (Monaco):
"A much needed result after some bad luck in the previous races. In qualifying I did an ok lap and got pole, which is very important in Monaco obviously. I did a good start, and a good first lap. Managed to pull a gap to David immediately. And then I was just pacing myself, not pushing the engine that much, not going too close to the barriers, and I was still faster than David. On lap 26 I made my first pitstop, and got behind David who was on a 1 stop. So I knew I had to pass him if I wanted to win the race. So I had to take some risks and went to the inside in the Nouvelle Chicane, I was already next to him but I guess he didn't see me because he turned in on me and contact was inevitable. But I managed to pass him, and from then on it was quite a lonely race, just making sure to get the car to the finish, and I did. A great and very important result for the championship. Thanks to all Precision drivers for their excellent work with the setups once again."
Ronny Hähnel (3rd) commented (Monaco):
"It was a quite great weekend considering that it was my first time with an F1 car at Monaco which really is quite crazy. The race could have been even better because Greco was on a one-stop strategy and I could have raced faster at the first stint. After my first pit stop I was in traffic and lost quite a lot time. The last stint was pretty good and I could gain time to Greco, but in the end it wasn't really possible to overtake him."
Mattias Stahre (6th) commented (Monaco):
"Wings, hits and rock n roll. Well this was quite a disastrous weekend for me. In the qualifying session I caught up other cars on all my attempts to set a good time which set me up bad for the race.
Starting in the middle of the grip is always hard but I can assure you that's almost impossible to not hit someone while you are trying to overtake other cars ahead and defend behind. When I lost my front wing and also got an in game penalty behind the Safety car it looked like it would be a race to forget but with 70 laps to go I tried my very best to get points. I managed to make lots of overtakes on others and with my teammate P1 I felt more comfortable that our car was working here which in the end it really did.Even though we didn't get a win the World Series race I think it was quite clear that we as a team came well prepared for this weekend.
Also I'd like to highlight that my teammate Cyril drove really well this race and it was sad that he had his accident."
Emre Uysal (4th) commented (Monaco):
"Good race overall after starting from p7. I made a solid start without any damage and builded up my race from there. After some misfortune of other drivers I finished the race on 4th place which isn't a bad result when you have a flu. With the setups being more stable every race I'm looking forward to Turkey wich is the national track for me. I'm sure the team will estabilish a great teamwork again and run infront for the win there."
Precision Motorsports
Official Press Release
written by John-Eric Saxen
www.precision-motorsports.de
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