Faster Than Speed scored its first World Championship points of the season at Shanghai.
Eduard Mallorqui drove a very strong Chinese GP to finish in 6th position. He was also the first driver to take the FTS-P13 through to Q2 this WC season.
In the World Championship, Twister Racing's Eduard Mallorqui jumped into the FTS-P13, develiering a fantastic Q1 performance, setting the 5th quickest time and taking FTS to Q2 for the first time in the 2013 FSR WC. In Q2, with hard tyres, he secured 10th on the grid. We thank Twister Racing for allowing Eduard to drive the FTS-P13 at Shanghai. Team-mate Giuseppe Marconi qualified 21st.
Both drivers ran almost identical two-stop strategies, running most of the race on the hard compound and switching to the softer one for the final stint. Eduard showed excellent pace and drove a very strong race, pulling off good overtaking moves in the process. An incident with Puschke complicated things and meant Eduard was handed a post-race penalty from the stewards. Despite his lower top speed leaving him unable to pass De Wit and Gosbee in the closing laps, it was still a very strong performance on his way to 6th at the finish, scoring the team's first WC points of 2013.
Giuseppe, meanwhile, had his race severely compromised when the Jasco Spain PSR crew released Rondon unsafely in the pitlane, causing the Spaniard to collide with the FTS driver. Although the incident caused Giuseppe to drop out of contention, he still managed to reach the checkered flag in 16th place.
Eduard Mallorqui (6th): "Qualyfing was fine, getting into Q2. The plan was to stay in pits and start with hard tyres, but we saw a lot of people doing their Q2 time on hards, so we decided to try too. It was my first time with that tyre/fuel combination so it did not work well. P10 was OK, anyway. Race was insane during the first laps, many cars overtaking me. I had a very low top speed so I couldn't challenge anyone. I just stayed behind all the action and just attacked when was needed. I tried to do my race and finally I was close to getting P5, but Patrick De Wit did an awesome job defending the position and it was impossible to overtake him: P6."
Giuseppe Marconi (16th): "Not much to say. After a good first stint I decided to pit two laps earlier than planned to gain some tenths on drivers in front and behind me. Unfortunately, my pitbox was in front of another driver who left the pitbox when I was stopping in mine, resulting in a crash. Car damaged, engine stalled twice, and had a 32-second-long pitstop, ending my race. See you in the next race, where I hope it will be my lucky day."
In the World Series, Thomas Mundy, from Great Britain, made his FTS debut. He was disappointed not pass the Pre-Qualifying cut by a few thousands of a second, but he will definitely exploit all his potential once settled in the team in the next few races. Team-mate Kevin Russo also missed out on the Grid 1 cut.
Faster Than Speed will be now heading to the twisty Monte Carlo. The fourth round of the 2013 FSR season will be hosted at the Principality. In previous Monaco GP's, Faster Than Speed has been on Pole Position and twice sprayed champagne in the World Championship. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@FTS_Racing) and Google+ for the latest news and live coverage from Monaco!
Faster Than Speed
Press Release
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